





■'■^ 






I m 

• %"« 






I I , ft ■ k • «► "T?**?" 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



| ta P |°^|' 



JMc// 



78 



^1 



* UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, j 















PERSONAL APPEARANCE 



AND 



The Culture of Beauty, 



WITH 



HINTS AS TO CHARACTER. 



BY 

V 



T. S. SOZINSKEY, M. D., Ph.D. 



'The proper study of mankind is man." — Pope. 






PHILADELPHIA: 

ALLEN, LANE & SCOTT, 233 SOUTH FIFTH STREET. 
1877. 



^ 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 

T. S. SOZINSKEY, M. D., Ph.D., 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Printed by 

ALLEN, LANE & SCOTT, 

233 South Fifth Street, 

Philadelphia. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction, '• . . . . . 5 

What is Beauty? . . .11 

A Type of Female Beauty, 23 

A Type of Male Beauty, .31 

Beauty and the Sex, 37 

The Basis of Beauty, 43 

Beauty an Improvable Heritage, 50 

The Head, 64 

The Neck and Ears, 70 

The Face as a whole, . ' . . . . . . -75 

The Forehead, 80 

The Eyebrows, 84 

The Eyes, 88 

The Nose, 97 

The Cheeks, . . . 101 

The Chin, 106 

The Lips, . 108 

The Teeth, . 1 [4 

Lines and Wrinkles, 122 

The Complexion, 129 

The Hairs, 138 

Special Flaws of the Person, 153 

Dress and Beauty, 161 

Conclusion, iSS 

(3) 



INTRODUCTION. 



" Thro' Nature's boundless reign 
No charm is lost, no beauty blooms in vain." — Mrs. Hemans. 

In the appearance of things, what is the great source 
of attractiveness ? What is it in forms and colors that 
awakens our sensibilities and thrills us with pleasure ? 
It is beauty. Beauty ! There is no charm so potent to 
captivate; no power sways such delightful influence. 
It is the aim of creation. If you doubt it, cast your eyes 
towards heaven, or look out over the face of nature. 
From the infinitely great to the infinitely small, it is all- 
pervading. How beautiful are the stars ! How beautiful 
the minute crystals of the dust beneath our feet ! And 
what of the rainbow or the flowers ? 

" O thou Goddess, 
Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st ! " — Shakspeare. 

It is the soul of art, — its portrayal the aim and end of 
artists. Painters, sculptors, architects, poets — everybody 
who has any harmony in himself pays homage and court 
to this divine principle in nature. It is possessed of a 
subtle fascination. Having seen it, we crave communion 
with it. As by instinct we kneel before it, and the more 
we know of it the more faithful and joyous the spirit of 
our devotion. 

(5) 



Now, if everything were perfect everything were beau- 
tiful, and the pleasure of existence would be complete 
and unbroken. There would be no jarring notes ; 
heavenly harmony would embrace creation. Would 
that it were so ! Alas ! imperfections are plentiful, and 
especially in our race — in man. While this is so, or 
rather in proportion as it is so, the beauty of all else is 
lost to him. Like a shattered mirror, the imperfect mind 
distorts the images of the most perfect things. It is as 
an unstrung harp, which, struck even by a master's hand, 
yields naught but discord. Our sensibility and taste 
must be attuned before we can receive the full measure 
of enjoyment from the beauties of the world. As the 
noted English art critic, Ruskin, writes, " The sensation 
of beauty is dependent on a pure, right, and open state of 
the heart both for its truth and its intensity." On this 
principle, that it is what is perfect in us that is alive to 
perfection, the same author again remarks : — " Beauty 
has been appointed by the Deity to be one of the ele- 
ments by which the human soul is continually sustained." 

There are certainly plenty of inducements to cultivate 
our feelings for the beautiful — our aesthetic sensibilities. 
In this way we open up to ourselves unlimited sources 
of joy and happiness. Nature's myriad works and all 
the productions of art will minister to our delights and 
enable us to banquet continually on pleasures. Springs 
of enchantment will surround us on every hand. Every 
bud and blossom, every lawn and landscape, every pic- 
ture and statue — whatever comes within the range of our 
senses, will invite pur attention and proffer charms which 
will give zest and sweetness to our lives. Thus can we 



make all things pay us tribute, and in a manner claim 
them as our own. 

But even without cultivation nearly everybody is, in 
some fashion, a devotee of beauty. Let it be present in 
an object, and we believe there is scarcely anyone who 
shall fail to recognize and relish it. He must be the 
veriest barbarian — nay, a creature not completely human 
in nature, who is entirely insensible to the beautiful. 
When asked why people like to spend much time with 
beautiful things, Aristotle replied : — " That is a question 
fit for a blind man to ask." 

We are devoted to the beautiful in minerals, in plants, 
in animals, in our dress, in a word, in everything, and 
no expense or pains are spared in gratifying the taste. 
Everybody will acknowledge that this is so and nobody 
has any fault to find. But notwithstanding this and all 
that we have said about beauty being a universal aim in 
creation and the cultivation of it the end and aim of the 
fine arts, and about the most beautiful things being the 
most perfect, there still lingers in the minds of many the 
foolish idea that it is wrong to prize and cultivate per- 
sonal beauty. They seem to think that it is pious to 
denounce it, or at least to profess to disregard it. These 
people must be insincere in what they say, because they 
cannot but understand that what nature strives for is not a 
vanity or an unworthy object of human ambition. No- 
body is silly enough to advocate ugliness as sacred and 
desirable. Yet, as a matter of fact, the man who denounces 
personal beauty is precisely in that position. His senti- 
ment is false ; he misrepresents himself. St. Paul^was 
very emphatic in recommending people to duly regard 



perfect the rose by cultivation and the landscape by- 
direct interference, so we can make ourselves perfect, 
beautiful. It is customary to go to some trouble and 
expense to improve the mind, while only in exceptional 
cases are any systematic efforts made to better the con- 
dition of the body. It is virtually allowed to take care 
of itself, its well-being is left to chance. What marvel 
that it should become unshapely and diseased ? What 
marvel that it should run to ruin and become an ugly 
waste ? This laissez faire practice is the direful source 
of unspeakable evils. The mind being dependent on the 
body — as all intelligent people will grant — the improve- 
ment of the latter should be desirable and be accorded 
precedence, even if there were no other reasons, for if it 
is bad, the former is generally of small consequence. 
" Wisdom," says Socrates, " is the mind's health, and 
this depends on the health of the body." Men of splen- 
did physiques are the mental lights of the world. All 
Bacons, Shakspeares, and Websters are strong and 
healthy. We esteem mind and fully appreciate cultiva- 
tion of it, but the temple is not to be despised and neg- 
lected on account of the nobility of its tenant ; rather the 
reverse. We should do all in our power to make both 
grand and beautiful ; we should try to make the face and 
soul correspond. Nor is it only a little that can be done ; 
on the contrary, much, very much. We can, in the words 
of Longfellow — 

" Fashion with a cunning art 
The human face, 
As we can clothe the soul with light 
And make the glorious spirit bright 
With heavenly grace." 



IO 

In this work personal appearance is the theme; the end, 
the attainment of beauty. We propose to tell what 
beauty is ; to present ideals to serve as examples for 
imitation, and to lay down principles and give instruc- 
tions which will guide people in striving after perfection. 
It is not surface-work, toilette-work, that we are going 
to treat of exclusively, but the complete development of 
the entire person, the enoblement and beautification of 
the race. Are we presuming to do what is impossible ? 
We hope not, we think not. Mark what the illustrious 
Bacon said, over two hundred years ago : — " Observation 
well weighed may teach a means to make the persons of 
men and women in many kinds more comely and better- 
featured than otherwise they would be." 

As part and parcel of our subject we will give some 
observations on the import of features. In the observer 
ability to read the meaning of the figure and face should 
be cultivated hand in hand with sensibility to the out- 
ward appearance. The former appeals to the intellect, 
the latter to the feeling. Insight into character is not 
only a source of refined pleasure, but also of immediate 
value. Our daily intercourse with society brings such 
knowledge constantly into profitable play. In connection, 
therefore, with the artistic study of parts, we will give 
such inferences as to character as will serve to guide and 
enable every one to measure pretty exactly the heart and 
mind of acquaintances, friends, and lovers. 



WHAT IS BEAUTY? 



" Who hath not proved how feebly words essay 
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray ?" — Byron. 

Various are the definitions of beauty. Socrates 
speaks of it as " a short-lived tyranny ; " Plato as " the 
privilege of nature;" Theophrastus as " a silent deceit;" 
Aristotle as " the gift of a fair appearance ; " and Shakes- 
peare as " a shining gloss." Having more or less refer- 
ence to the human face, these conceptions of beauty are 
good enough in their way, but not entirely satisfactory 
to matter-of-fact people. Indeed, it is hard to express in 
terms the tout ensemble of delicacy, grace of outlines, and 
harmony of proportions and of colors which constitutes 
beauty. Really, the canons of aesthetics — the science of 
the beautiful — have not yet been written. Whatever is 
most pleasing to any person is put down by that person 
as beautiful, and as the beau ideal of each is not exactly 
the same as that of any other, much of what is written 
on the subject is extremely confusing. But we have no 
right to infer from this that beauty cannot be reduced to 
definite principles and elements. It is easier to suppose 
that the tastes of people vary in consequence of some 
bias or prejudice than that there are no universal and 
permanent laws of beauty. There can be no doubt that 
just as there are odors, tastes, and sounds which in the 



12 

nature of things are more or less pleasing to all, so there 
are certain forms and colors and combinations of these 
which are in themselves pleasing. Beauty is not arbi- 
trary or conventional, its principles are unchanging. 
The artistic productions of the ancients are still beautiful 
and ever will be. Now what is the criterion or rule of 
beauty ? Says Ruskin, " If a thing is the result of the 
complete fulfillment of a natural law it will be beautiful ; 
if of the violation of a natural law it will be ugly." 
This is the deductive way of getting at the thing, and 
although the result is only an abstract idea it gives us 
a correct conception of perfect beauty. 

Another way of arriving at a tangible and almost, if 
not entirely, perfect idea of what beauty is, is by com- 
paring the beaux ideal of a large number of persons of 
culture, persons who have made a critical study of 
nature, and then picking out the one that corresponds 
with the ideals of most. Pursuing this method we can 
obtain the beautiful of an unlimited number of things ; 
but still it does not discover to us any principles or 
system of laws. Knowledge of these is to be gained by 
wide observation and critical study, by scientific research. 
Progress in this direction has been slow, yet enough to 
encourage continued efforts. The most important of 
the results we will now proceed to discuss. 

As to beauty of form, the philosophical Father of 
American Medicine, Dr. Rush, says : — " There is a certain 
figure which is calculated to give pleasure to the eye. 
Hogarth places it in the curved line which he calls the 
line of beauty. This line occurs oftener in the human 
figure than in that of any other animal, for which reason 



13 

man is considered the most beautiful creature on the 
face of the earth. It is in viewing a beautiful human 
figure, whether male or female, that ' the eye is never 
satisfied,' even the images of it upon canvas and in 
marble are delightful." In drawing a curved line some- 
what like the letter /"on the palette beneath his picture 
of himself and dog, and writing under it ' The line of 
beauty and grace" Hcfgarth did not mean to convey the 
impression that every other line is entirely void of 
beauty. In his celebrated Analysis of Beauty ', written 
with a View of fixing the Fluctuating Idea of Taste (1753), 
he does not come to that conclusion, as some writers 
would seem to think. Such a conclusion would exclude 
from the sphere of the beautiful a long list of things 
deserving of that title; among them all crystalline forms, 
the whole mineral world in fact Still, in all forms 
throughout the vegetable and animal kingdoms, or, in 
other words, in all living things, the curved line seems 
to be the great aim of nature and par excellence the line 
of beauty. Everything that is rounded and smooth is 
pleasing to the eye. As the author just quoted states, 
this test makes the human form the most beautiful object 
in nature. We can go a step farther without incur- 
ring the accusation of flattery. It is very well known 
that woman is far more delicately rounded than man, so 
we accord to her the palm for beauty. The chivalrous 
Burns sings truly: — 

" Auld nature swears the lovely dears 
Her noblest work she classes O ! 

Her prentice han' she tried on man 
An' then she made the lasses O ! " 



H 

We now pass to compound forms, — to forms made up 
of two or more elements. Now there is a certain rela- 
tion of the size of parts to each other and to the whole 
which is an essential portion of beauty, and it consti- 
tutes what is known as proportion. We will not go into 
a lengthy development of the subject, but simply state 
at once that in any particular object the standard of pro- 
portion is the proportions of the type, or rather the 
beau ideal of its kind or species. For example, the best 
proportions — those which are most beautiful — of man 
are those of the best type of his race. " It is from a 
reiterated experience," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his 
admirable Discourses (1790), "and a close comparison of 
the objects in nature, that an artist becomes possessed of 
the idea of that central form, if I may so express it, from 
which every deviation is deformity.' , 

Granting this as true, the important question arises 
whether or not there is a definite aesthetic law of pro- 
portions common to natural objects universally and to 
the subdivisions of each. This subject was discussed 
by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philoso- 
phers, and by many in modern times, but to little pur- 
pose. In his famous work, The Sublime and Beautiful 
(1756), Burke says: — "Beauty hath usually been said to 
consist in certain proportions of parts. On considering 
the matter I have great reason to doubt whether beauty 
be at all an idea belonging to proportion. Proportion 
relates almost wholly to convenience, as every idea of 
order seems to do; and it must therefore be considered 
as a creature of the understanding rather than a primary 
cause, acting on the senses and imagination. " A nega- 



i5 

tive result of this kind has been until recently almost the 
only reward of all investigation and discussion. Mr. 
Hay, a very industrious and enthusiastic author, as the 
result of his studies, proclaimed to the world, some thirty 
years ago, that "the science of proportion is based upon 
the Platonic triangles." He states his theory as fol- 
lows: — "The basis of the present theory is that a figure 
is pleasing to the eye in the same degree as its funda- 
mental angles bear to each other the same proportions 
that the vibrations bear to one another in the same 
chord of music." This harmonic theory, although 
possibly right in principle, has never been accepted as 
conclusive; indeed, to tell the truth, very few have gone 
to the trouble of mastering its meaning, for it requires 
an effort of the mind to understand it. 

The German scientists have of late become the lead- 
ers in aesthetic studies. A distinguished savant, A. 
Zeising, in his work, ALsthetische Forschungen, published 
in 1855, lays down what he believes to be the funda- 
mental rule of proportion in accordance with which 
nature operates. It is extremely simple and merits 
general attention. Should all that is claimed for it be 
borne out, it would deserve to rank with the greatest 
discoveries of the age. The rule is the same in prin- 
ciple as the elementary geometrical procedure, called 
by Plato the "golden cut/' and which consists in 
dividing a line into two unequal parts, in such a manner 
that the large one forms the mean proportional between 
the entire line and the smaller part; or, to put it as 
does the author, the whole is to the greater part as the 
latter is to the lesser {die Maasse des ga?tzen zu denen des 



i6 

grossen Theiles wie dessen Maasse zu denen kleineren 
Theiles). Thus, let A be a line, which is divided into 
two unequal parts, the larger B and the smaller C; if 
the divisions are in the proportion of beauty, the ratio 
of A to B is equal to the ratio between B and C: or, in 
technical form, A: B:: B: C. Here B is the mean pro- 
portional to the extremes C and A, and equal to the 
square root of fheir product. Professor G. T. Fechner 
records, in his memoir, Zur Experimentalen JEsthetik 
(1865), a series of experiments on a large number of 
persons, from which he maintains that the rule is 
abundantly shown to hold good in the human form in 
all its subdivisions. Thus the waist should divide the 
person so that the portion below is the mean propor- 
tional between the part above and the entire height ; and 
so the distance from the waist to the crown of the head 
should be similarly divided by a line at the smallest point 
of the neck. Again, in a proportionately-featured face 
the nose should be the mean proportional between the 
conjoined length of itself and the forehead and that of 
the latter; and so the distance from the nose to the chin 
should be similarly divided by the line of the mouth. 
The rule applies to divisions in the breadth and depth 
as well as in the length. When the eye becomes familiar 
with this proportion it is readily detected everywhere, — 
in the crystals, plants, and animals, in statues and cathe- 
drals, and in fact in everything that is beautiful. So 
much being claimed for this rule, and so general is its 
acceptance, — as witness the prominence given to it in 
the edition of 1876 of Harless' great work on Plastic 
Anatomy [Lehrbuch du Plastischen A?tatomie) ) — that we 



17 

will here give the method of dividing a given line into 
two parts, so that the greater will be the mean propor- 
tional between the lesser and the whole. 

C 




Let A B be the given line. At its extremity B erect a 
perpendicular equal in length to one-half of the line A 
B, and from C draw a straight line to A. Now with C 
as centre and C B as radius, describe a circle ; which cuts 
A C at the point D. By cutting from our line a portion 
equal to A D we have it divided at the point E, as 
desired. 

Several artists have given us detailed measurements 
of ideal humanity. The great Albrecht Diirer elabo- 
rated a code of proportions which still excels all others 
in minuteness. In spite, however, of all modern investi- 
gation, it is generally thought that the best artistic 
realization of the proportions of the human form — male 
and female — are found in the Greek statues of Apollo 
and Venus, which will be treated of elsewhere. 

Although matters of outline and proportion, we may 
say a few words separately about grace and symmetry. 



i8 

The idea of action is almost always associated with grace; 
it is a quality of motion and attitude. With correct out- 
line and proportion all natural attitudes and motions are 
graceful. Ease and freedom from restraint are essential 
elements of grace. 

Symmetry is the term used to express similarity of 
the parts on both sides of every living thing — say man. 
Thus, the two eyes, the two cheeks, both sides of the 
head, both arms, and so on, must be exactly alike or there 
is want of symmetry, and, consequently, want of beauty. 
The effect of want of symmetry in dress is striking, but 
never harmonious. 

We will now turn our attention to color, the other 
element of beauty. " It is meant," says Ruskin, " for 
the perpetual comfort and delight of the human heart; 
it is richly bestowed on the highest works of creation, 
and the eminent sign and seal of perfection in them/' It 
is now the accepted belief that there is no such thing as 
color in nature. Objects only seem to have color. All 
colors are but modifications of the white light of the sun. 
By letting a pencil of rays pass through a prism, — a 
three-cornered piece of clear glass, — and fall on a screen, 
seven colors — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, 
and violet are readily detected, but the shades are num- 
berless. This is a spectrum or rainbow scale of colors. 
Now some surfaces reflect light completely, and they 
appear white. Others do not reflect at all, and they appear 
black. Others reflect only the red rays, and they appear 
red, and so on. This power of reflecting certain rays is 
what is referred to when we speak of anything as pos- 
sessing a certain color. Peculiarity of structure is the 



19 

cause of peculiarity of color. A few flowers and the 
plumage of some birds have the property of reflecting 
the complete spectrum. The rose and the golden pheas- 
ant furnish examples. 

From the three colors — blue, red, and yellow — we can 
readily obtain all the others. These are called the pri- 
maries. By mixing blue and red in equal proportion, 
we get violet ; red and yellow give orange, and blue and 
yellow give green. These three are the secondaries. By 
adding to each of the secondaries the primary that is 
absent, we get the so-called tertiary colors, — citron, rus- 
set, and olive. Various proportions of these give all the 
other colors in all their shades. In his Farbenlehre 
(1810), the best work on the principles of beauty in 
colors, the great philosophical poet Goethe says : — " The 
whole ingredients of the chromatic scale, seen in juxta- 
position, produce an harmonious impression on the eye." 
This is the essential principle of the pleasurable in con- 
joined colors. Individual colors are contemplated with 
more or less pleasure ; but when arranged side by side so 
that the eye rests on them one after another, the consti- 
tution of the visual organ requires that certain colors 
must succeed each other in order to have a strictly 
pleasurable effect. These subjects will be fully treated 
of elsewhere. 

In delicacy and beauty, the colors of the face are not 
outrivaled anywhere. This subject will also be treated 
of at length elsewhere. 

Now, a few words as to why the sight of particular 
forms and colors is pleasurable. Aristotle, Hogarth, 
Reynolds, Burke, and others have traced it to the direct 



20 

sensation excited. Plato, St. Augustine, and Ruskin 
are of those who have thought that it arises from the 
conception of associated excellency or divine attributes 
communicated to all perfect things by the Deity. Ali- 
son, Jeffrey, and their school, refer it to the flow of ideas 
suggested, and the modern scientific school of thinkers, 
headed by Herbert Spencer, attribute it to the direct 
sensation, together with activity of perception and mul- 
titudinous associations of ideas and feelings from, past 
experience, or any one or two of these sources. Simple 
sensation, as of tone, color, &c, which are partly 
organic and partly the result of association, is the source 
of the commonest class of pleasures ; pleasures arising 
from the perception, as employed in the recognition of 
color, &c, come next, and the highest order of pleas- 
ures are those of the aesthetic sentiments proper, consist- 
ing of numerous emotions ideally excited by natural and 
artistic objects of beauty. When sensation, perception 
and emotion are all at once in full pleasurable activity, 
the most perfect form of gratification from contemplating 
the beautiful is realized. Most persons, probably, are 
transported by direct sensation, like Virgil's Camilla, 
who was carried away by the embroidered tunic, pur- 
ple mantle, and golden coat of armor of the Trojan, 
and are votaries of beauty, in the appearance of things. 
It is an error, engendered by the civilized custom of 
wearing clothing, to associate beauty of the human figure 
with the face alone. When Lady Montague was in 
Turkey, she had excellent opportunities for forming a 
correct opinion in regard to this matter ; and in her let- 
ters, we are told, " I perceived that the ladies of the 



21 

most delicate skins and finest shapes had the greatest 
share of my admiration, though their faces were some- 
times less beautiful than those of their companions.' , 
We might quote any amount of testimony to this effect, 
but it will be enough to know what Fou and Knox have 
to say on the subject in their excellent work on Artistic 
Anatomy (Anatomy of the External Forms, 184.9). ^ n 
it we find this statement : — " The posterior surface of 
the torso in woman is unquestionably the chef (Toeuvre 
of nature." This is going too far, perhaps. The sweep- 
ing curves of the trunk and limbs are extremely beauti- 
ful, but we believe that even in form, apart from color 
and expression, the face is more beautiful than any other 
part of the person. We may draw a distinction. The 
beauty of the former is plain — impressive, or, to put it 
in a word, sublime in nature; whereas the beauty of the 
latter is detailed, interesting. " Nature has," says Addi- 
son, in The Spectator, "laid out all her art in beautifying 
the face. She has touched it with vermillion, planted in 
it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and 
blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the bright- 
ness of the eye, hung it on each side with curious 
organs of sense, given it airs and graces which cannot be 
described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade 
of hair as sets its beauties in the most agreeable light." 
The beauty of the face, both of form and hue, is liable 
to great and almost constant change in being the seat of 
expression. There the feelings, emotions, and thoughts 
of the mind within are constantly flashing, moulding, 
and coloring. This gives great variation to the beauty 
of the face. 



22 

We may conclude this chapter with a few remarks as 
to what is beautiful. This whole matter may be summed 
up in the statement that everything that is perfect is 
beautiful, and everything that is imperfect is ugly. 
Absolute beauty is an ideal, and in all things there is 
only more or less of an approach toward it. Strictly 
speaking, then, we should regard things as only relatively 
beautiful. Plato joins the True and the Good in his idea 
of the beautiful, and all the Greeks, to whom beauty was 
the breath of life, regarded it as only another name for 
excellence of every kind. The Christian Fathers waged 
an interesting controversy on this question. Saints Jus- 
tin, Clement, Basil, and Cyril maintained that Christ 
should not be beautiful. Celsus, the author of Rome's 
legacy to Medicine, De Medicind, who was an able 
dialectician, retorted, " Jesus was not beautiful ? then he 
was not God!" Saints Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose, 
Augustine, and Chrysostom sustained the contrary opin- 
ion, but to no purpose. The church has never pronounced 
its opinion. Raphael, Angelo, and other artists of genius 
have represented him as extremely beautiful. 

The view of Celsus is precisely the same as that of 
many leading minds of modern times. We may take 
the instance of Victor Cousin, the eclectic philosopher. 
In his work on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good 
(Le Vrai y le Beau, et le Bon, i8jj), he sums up his con- 
clusions as follows: — "The realized ideal of all beauty is 
God, in whom there is combined absolute unity with 
infinite variety." 



A TYPE OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 



" O fairest of creation ! last and best 
Of all God's works ! " — Milton. 

The Greeks were great admirers of personal beauty, 
and the same may be said, but in a lesser degree, of the 
Romans. Indeed, their admiration of it developed into 
a form of worship — a religion. Their divinities — their 
Joves and Minervas — were only human ideals, whose 
qualities were equally esteemed when discovered in 
themselves. If a sculptor wished to form a divine per- 
sonage, he copied the most admirable features of his 
fellow-creatures, who came freely to him as models. 
Herein lies the secret of their love of beauty, and the 
ascendancy of their art productions. 

Now, to the people of these two nations, and to all the 
world before their time, the most beautiful object in na- 
ture was a woman, one 

" In body perfect and complete in mind," 

as Homer sings of the faithful Penelope. Nor has this 
high estimate of woman's beauty lessened in modern 
times. In one of the best works on artistic anatomy 
(Fou & Knox's) it is said, " In her alone beauty resides ; 
she is, in fact, the only perfect and beautiful object in 
nature." By the Greeks the goddess of beauty was 

(«3) 



24 

named Aphrodite, and by the Romans Venus, she hav- 
ing been awarded the prize of beauty, the golden apple, 
by Paris, in preference to Minerva and Juno. This was 
the favorite goddess. She was realized ideally in marble 
by the best artists, and placed in all the temples to re- 
ceive the homage of the people. Statues of her were 
very numerous, many of them the works of master- 
hands, the greatest triumphs of genius. 

The deplorable vandalism, inspired by uncouth fanati- 
cism, which prevailed for many centuries after the de- 
cline of these refined nations of antiquity, had no respect 
even for these charming embodiments of glorious wo- 
manhood. They were smashed to pieces. In modern 
time, however, the fragments of a number of them have 
been unearthed, and by patience and skill one at least 
has been almost completely restored. It is, in the ex- 
pressive words of Thomson, 

" The statue that enchants the world." 

The famous Venus de' Medici (so called because 
possessed, for a long time, by the noted family of that 
name), — the most precious relic of ancient art, — was dis- 
covered in the ruins of the villa of Hadrian, near Tivoli, 
in 1680. It was found in eleven pieces, and was the 
creation of the Athenian sculptor Cleomanes, who flour- 
ished about two centuries before the beginning of our era. 
The right arm and the lower portion of the left have not 
been discovered, but these portions of the bewitching 
figure have been admirably supplied by Bardinelli, a 
celebrated Italian artist. It is now in the Tribune of the 



25 

Uffizi Gallery, at Florence, an object of world-wide re- 
nown and interest. 

Now, in this statue, which is life-sized, we have an 
ideal woman, — the best model of beauty to be found, 

" The mingled beauties of exulting Greece." — Thomson. 

We take it as our type of female beauty. 

We will now try to give a description of our goddess. 
Not such an one as we might give if our imagination 
w T ere unbridled ; not a glowing word-picture, — that has 
been already well done by others. The tape-line will 
supply our ideas ; we propose to limit ourselves to facts. 
We will give the measurements in such a way that every 
fair lady in the land, no difference what her absolute size 
may be, can, by comparison, determine whether or not 
her proportions are all that could be hoped for. 

What impresses one most on first casting the eye on 
this figure is its grace of outline. Look where you may, 
every part is full, free, undulating. You can detect no 
angularities ; it is rounded everywhere ; there is not a 
single indication of the framework, not a trace of a mus- 
cle to be seen. The height is five feet, and the circum- 
ference of the waist, which is four inches in length, is 
thirty inches. It will be noticed, from these statements, 
that the thickness is precisely equal to half the stature. 
This is surely an astonishing revelation to many of our 
modern belles, who seem to think that the smaller the 
waist the nearer it approaches to the beautiful. The 
height is a little less than the average of American 
ladies, but the waist is certainly much greater. This 



26 

should be remembered, especially by those misguided 
damsels who are, perhaps, already disproportionately 
thin, but who, from a false taste, will persist in sacrificing 
comfort and health by squeezing themselves purposely 
with corsets, which raises a foolish cry of condemnation 
against this most sanatory and almost necessary part of 
female apparel. The average waist of young ladies is 
about twenty-four inches, about seven less than it should 
be. .The ladies of Austria boast, it is said, that the 
empress of the realm has a waist of only fourteen 
inches. Their art-knowledge must be dangerously de- 
ficient. But to return to our subject. The difference 
between the breadth of the waist and the breadth at the 
hips is equal to the difference between the latter and the 
breadth at the hip-joints. Comparing the breadth at 
the hip-joints with the breadth at the shoulders, we 
notice that the former is a little the greater. 

The breadth at the hips is precisely equal to the breadth 
of the chest below the arms. The width of the arms, if 
extended horizontally and in a straight line, is equal to 
the height, and the length of the lower extremities is 
equal to the length of the trunk and head together. 
These proportions are just as given in the best modern 
statuary. Powers^ Greek Slave and Gibson's Psyche are 
examples. 

We now turn to the face. It is oval, the breadth 
being two-thirds the length. Its length is divisible into 
three equal parts, of which the nose is one, and its 
breadth is divisible into five equal parts, of which the* 
eyes are the second and fourth. The forehead is smooth 
and moderately full ; the eyes are of medium size and 



27 

prominence ; there is a wide, hairless space between the 
eyebrows, which are slightly arched and somewhat lower 
at the outer than at the inner ends ; the nose is straight 
in type, and thin; the lips are full, and the chin is 
rounded. From the forehead there is a gradual rise to 
the crown, so that the latter is higher — on a higher plane — 
than the former by its height; but if the head were 
thrown a little further back, it would be less, — say one- 
fifth the entire length to the chin, the proportion ob- 
served by Michael Angelo and most of the best modern 
artists. The cast of the features, as a whole, is expres- 
sive of love, while that of Diana's is of strength, and of 
Minerva's of wisdom. 

As a supplement to this rough sketch we will now 
give some detailed measurements which we take for the 
most part from the celebrated work of Audran, The Pro- 
portions of the Human Figure (1683). Doubtless they 
will prove interesting to many. 

As already stated, the face is divisible into three parts 
of equal length, and it is another from the top of the fore- 
head to a level with the crown of the head. The four 
parts form the length of the head. 

Now we will take one of these parts as our measure 
and reckon every twelfth of it a minute. The height is 
seven heads and three parts ; the breadth at the shoulders 
is seven parts nine minutes ; at the waist, four parts 
eight minutes ; at the hips, six parts three minutes ; at 
the middle of the thigh, two parts seven minutes; at 
the calf of the leg, two parts one minute ; above the 
ankle, one part one minute ; across the instep, one part 
four minutes ; at the middle of the arm, one part nine 



v 



28 

minutes ; at the middle of the fore-arm, one part nine 
minutes ; and at the wrist, one part. The depth of the 
chest from the nipple back is four parts four minutes ; 
at the waist, three parts seven minutes ; at the middle of 
the thigh, three parts six minutes; at the calf of the leg, 
two parts one minute ; above the ankle, one part four 
and a half minutes ; at the middle of the arm, one part 
nine minutes ; at the middle of the fore-arm, one part 
seven minutes ; and at the wrist, eleven minutes. From 
the lobe of the ear to the fossa at the head of the breast- 
bone is two parts eight minutes. The antero-posterior 
diameter of the neck is one part eleven minutes. The 
width of the mouth is seven and one-quarter minutes ; 
and of the nose, at the wings, six and one-half minutes. 
The length of the upper lip is two minutes and of the 
lower three minutes. The thickness of the lower lip is 
one and one half minutes, and the depth of the nose at 
the tip is six minutes. The length of the foot is equal 
to one-sixth the stature, and the length of the hand is 
about one-tenth. 

Such is Venus, the goddess of Beauty, the mother of 
Love, and the mistress of the Graces. 



" The goddess loves in stone, and fills 
The air around with beauty ; we inhale 
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils 
Part of its immortality; the vail 
Of heaven is half withdrawn ; within the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face behold 
What mind can make, when Nature's self would fail ; 
And to the fond idolaters of old 
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould : 



2 9 

" We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 
Reels with its fullness ; there — forever there — 
Chained to the chariot of triumphal art, 
We stand as captives and would not depart." — Byron. 

We may here state that the average height of women 
of the Anglo-Saxon race is five feet two inches, and the 
average weight, one hundred and seventeen pounds. 
The weight is greatest when about fifty years of age. 
When the size is much above the average, even that the 
proportions are correct, we are not inclined to regard the 
person as beautiful, or at any rate the other sex is not 
affected as with beauty. Burke lays great emphasis on 
this point. " Beautiful objects," he declares, " are compar- 
atively small," and again, " the beauty of women is con- 
siderably owing to their weakness or delicacy and is 
even enhanced by their timidity, a quality of mind 
analogous to it." Indeed, this distinguished authority 
defines beauty to be " those qualities in bodies by which 
they cause love or some passion similar to it." Without 
wishing to argue in favor of this definition, we must 
allow that it finds strong proof in the fact that female 
loveliness has been the main inspiration of many, if not 
all the great poets, for if each had not like Petrarch a 
particular Laura, we can suppose their inspiration many- 
sided ; at any rate, the great bard of Briton says : — 

" Never durst poet touch a pen to write 
Until his ink were tempered with love's sighs." 

The Hindoos have had throughout their long history 
a remarkable taste and veneration for female beauty. 



3o 

Over three thousand years ago every art was practiced 
to beautify the ladies, and no side of their nature was 
missed. The name, even, was considered an important 
matter. Thus in the ancient code, The Institutes of Menu y 
it is declared, " The names of women should be agree- 
able, clear, captivating the fancy, soft, auspicious, ending 
in long vowels resembling words of benediction. ,, This 
is almost the same as what Burke says in support of 
his doctrine that whatever is beautiful is relatively 
small. " In most languages," says he, " the objects of 
love are spoken of under diminutive epithets." Thus 
an intuitive sense of the beautiful, a sense of congruity, 
may be the reason why female names are so generally 
made to terminate, a la Scotch, in the letters ie. 



A TYPE OF MALE BEAUTY. 



" A combination and a form indeed, 
Where every god did seem to set his seal." 

Shakspeare. 

Adonis was regarded by the ancients as the most 
beautiful example of his sex. He was the beloved of 
Venus, his charms drew her down from the heights of 
Olympus — from the court of Heaven. To gods and men 
his beauty was matchless. He stood alone, without an 
equal, a miracle of ineffable attractiveness and delight. 
His praise was on every tongue. It was thought, as 
our Poet expressed it — 

" True, sweet beauty lived and died with him." 

The artists of both Greece and Rome vied with one 
another in their efforts to fitly mould his pure, ethereal 
form. Statues of him were to be found on every hand. 
A few of these superb works, more or less mutilated, 
are yet in existence ; but the form of Adonis is that of 
a lovely youth, of adolescence and not of ripe manhood, 
so we turn elsewhere for a type of manly beauty. 

Quite as much pains really were given to the repre- 
sentation in marble of Apollo, the god of the fine arts, 
medicine, music, poetry, and eloquence, as of Adonis, 
and in the magnificent Apollo Belvidere we have the 

(3i) 



32 

antique and still the best realization of man in his best 
estate. This wonderfully perfect statue was executed 
by a Grecian sculptor, but by whom we are unable to 
say. It was discovered in the year 1503, among the 
ruins of Antium, now Porto 'Anzo, a village near the 
mouth of the Tiber, about thirty miles below Rome. 
Pope Julius II. purchased it, and it has still been owned 
by his successors in the chair of St. Peter. Napoleon 
caused it, among other precious treasures of art, to be 
brought to Paris, where it remained from 1797 to 18 1 5. 
When restored to Rome it was replaced in the Vatican, 
the splendid pontificial palace and museum of the fine 
arts. It stands in the Belvidere pavilion, hence the 
name Apollo Belvidere. The name of Pythian Apollo 
is sometimes applied to it, because the god is represented 
as an archer in the act of discharging an arrow at Py- 
thon, the fabulous dragon, the destruction of which is 
recorded as one of his principal feats. When found, 
both hands were wanting, but these have been admirably 
restored by Angelo da Montorsoli, a pupil of Michael 
Angelo. 

In entering upon a description of our statue, we may 
state that its being slightly heroic in size, being seven 
feet in height, has nothing to do with the proportions ; 
they would remain the same if it were ever so much 
reduced, or enlarged either. We may also say, that the 
mantle which is thrown around the shoulders, the san- 
dals, and other accessories, are of no interest to us, 
being students of the figure merely. Now, representing 
the god as he appeared immediately after discharging 
the fatal arrow, the most striking characteristic of this 



33 

majestic work is its expression. It is covered with an 
air of triumphant power ; vitality is apparent in every 
part of it. Says Winckelmann, the great art critic, in his 
History of Ancient Art [Geschichte der Kunst des Alter- 
thums, 1764), " In view of this marvel of art I forget 
earth, I am elevated above the senses and my soul takes 
easily a supernatural nature proper to judge of it 
worthily. My bosom fills with respect as of the 
prophets. I feel transported to Delos and into the woods 
of Lycia which Apollo honored with his presence ; for 
this statue seems to animate us as the beauty of Pygma- 
lion and to take life and motion in proportion as we 
intently contemplate it." 

Some of the proportions, according to the method of 
reckoning of Audran, are as follows : — The height is 
seven heads and three and a half parts ; the anteropos- 
terior diameter of the neck, two parts ; the distance from 
the root of the lobe of the ear to the sternal fossa, 
three parts ; the breadth from nipple to nipple, four parts 
seven minutes; the breadth at the waist, five parts nine 
minutes; at the hips, six parts two minutes; at the. hip- 
joints, six parts seven minutes ; at the middle of the arm, 
one part seven minutes ; at the middle of the fore-arm, 
one part six minutes ; at the wrist, one part one minute ; 
at the middle of the thigh, two parts eight and a half min- 
utes; and at the calf of the leg, two parts four minutes. 

In comparing Apollo with Venus we notice that, though 
in the main similar as to outline and proportions, there 
are some important differences, some of which we may 
point out. 

He is not so rounded and his limbs are not as straight ; 



34 

neither are his joints as delicate, the articulations being 
more apparent. His shoulders do not droop as much as 
hers and he is wider at the shoulders than at the hip- 
joints, while she is slightly narrower at the former than at 
the latter. His chest is longer and consequently his 
waist is shorter and thicker than hers. His hands are 
larger and so is his head, and the features of his face are 
more sharply cut. 

In Cldlde Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron gives us a grand 
description of our ideal. As he stood in its presence 
the noble poet was filled with enthusiasm, his soul 
was warmed with the true Promethean fire, and he pro- 
nounced a eulogy on it which for eloquence is hardly 
paralleled in the English language save by his own trib- 
ute to the Medician Venus : — 



i 



" View the lord of the unerring bow, 
The god of life, and poesy, and light — 
The sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; 
The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright 
With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye 
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might 
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, 
Developing in that one glance the Deity. 

" But in his delicate form — a dream of love, 

Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast 

Longed for a deathless lover from above, 

And madden'd in that vision — are exprest 

All that ideal beauty ever bless'd 

The mind within its most unearthly mood, 

When each conception was a heavenly guest — 

A ray of immortality — and stood 

Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god!" 



35 

The average height of men of our race is five feet six 
inches, and the average weight one hundred and forty 
pounds. When about forty years of age men are at 
their heaviest stage. The average circumference of the 
chest is about thirty-five inches, and it should be the 
same at the hips. The difference between the circum- 
ference of the chest when it is inflated to the fullest ex- 
tent possible, and when the air is expelled as completely 
as possible, should be at least three inches. Dr. Ham- 
mond, who was surgeon-general during our civil war, 
says [Military Hygiene, i86j) y that when this difference is 
less than three inches it is a question whether the man 
is fit for military duty. A person can, we believe, be 
healthy and strong with even less, and one with more 
may be deficient in those qualities. It can be increased 
by exercise and by tight lacing, which prevents the ungs 
from expanding downward. We have reason to think 
that this latter is one of the causes of its being more in 
women than in men. To prove a good vocalist it is 
necessary that the lungs shall be large and strong, with 
more than average mobility of the chest-walls. The 
character of the voice is to a great extent due to the 
form of the chest. In men the breathing is mainly ab- 
dominal, and in women pectoral, and for this reason his 
voice is naturally of a low pitch, while hers is of a high 
one. When markedly abdominal in him his voice is 
basso, and when markedly pectoral in her it is soprano ; 
while if it inclines to be pectoral in him his voice is alto, 
and if it inclines to be abdominal in her it is contralto. 
The deep-breathing people have most vitality. 

With regard to the face it may be said that well-marked, 



36 

expressive features are the most desirable in a man. In 
him power takes the place which beauty does in woman; 
but beauty of the manly type is eminently compatible 
with a manly character. We may here remark of a 
typical man that his mind should be strong and disci- 
plined, and his knowledge extensive. In speaking of 
Cicero, Plutarch gives us a good idea of what a man's 
mental cast should be. " He had," says he, " that turn 
of genius and disposition which Plato would have a 
scholar and philosopher to possess. He had both capac- 
ity and inclination to learn all the arts, neither was there 
any branch of science that he despised." 



BEAUTY AND THE SEX. 



" The sky we look up to, though glorious and fair, 

Is looked up to more because heaven is there." — Moore. 

In this chapter we propose to supplement with some 
general remarks what we have already said in regard to 
beauty of the sexes, and also to throw out some hints as 
to the traits which are most desirable in woman and 
which she should especially cultivate. 

In treating of types we have spoken of form almost 
exclusively; but we do not desire any one to gain the 
impression that the beauty of mankind is a matter of 
physical form only, The most lowly plants and animals 
have something more ; all of them are possessed of 
color, and show some evidences of life. Now, color is 
an important factor of human beauty, particularly of the 
face, and expression also plays here a significant role. A 
face of statuesque beauty, still and colorless, is admirable, 
to be sure, and if it is richly embellished with Nature's 
skillful pencil it will be much more so ; but if it lacks 
expression it is, like a flower void of fragrance, wanting 
in a great source of magnetism. When the power of 
mind or the charm of heart or both beam in features of 
perfect form and tints then is it indeed overpowering. 
Bacon had reason in saying that "the best part of beauty 

(37) 



38 

is that which a picture cannot express." It is true, ex- 
pression does not always improve the appearance of the 
face ; Hut it is only when there is nothing good or pleasant 
to express, when the mind and heart are not what they 
should be, or the person is racked with pain or oppressed 
with care or disease. The cultivated mind and loving 
heart and pleasurable feelings will always have a gracious 
expression, beaming forth in strong rays of nobility, 
sweetness, and joy. Many have gone so far as to regard 
beauty as merely the index animi — the outward shadow of 
the soul, as did Socrates. We may or may not take that 
view of the matter as correct, but there is certainly the 
strongest possible inducements, so far as beauty is con- 
cerned, held out for improvement of both heart and head. 
Says Ecclesiasticus, "The heart of a man changeth his 
countenance, whether it be for evil or good," and Solo- 
mon declares, "The countenance of the wise showeth 
wisdom." Indeed, in a face bright with health and re- 
splendent of heart and mind the mere form may be 
overlooked, so powerful is animation, so engrossing the 
expression of the vital spark within. Here let us say 
sotto voce to the ill-favored sisterhood, if there is not 
much to please the eye, the more should be done to 
tickle the fancy and the intelligence. Every one can be in 
some way pleasing and should be, for as Dr. Holmes says 
in the Philosopher at the Breakfast Table, " The woman 
who does not please is a false note in the harmonies of 
nature." To stimulate those who have been " cheated of 
feature by dissembling Nature," and who remain ugly in 
in spite of science and art, but who have the commendable 
ambition to attract and please, we will say a few more 



1 



39 

words by way of encouragement. Every one has noticed 
that they are not all beauties who have become brides, 
and some are at a loss to know how they led their hus- 
bands captive. There is no mystery about it ; they did 
it by being agreeable, kind, and affectionate. In the 
gorgeous description of Eve which the divine Milton 
presents in his Paradise Lost as having been given by 
Adam to the Angel, the greatest emphasis is placed, not 
on her bare physical features, but on lustrous qualities 
of these, so to speak. It is said : — 

" Grace was in her steps, Heav'n in her eye, 
In all her gestures dignity and love." 

The most renowned of Grecian women, the gray-eyed 
brunette Aspasia, who, as Plutarch tells us, " captured the 
most illustrious statesmen and brought even philosophers 
to speak of her so much to her advantage/' was not as 
beautiful as many others; "some, indeed," continues the 
author just quoted, " affirm that Pericles made his court 
to her only on account of her wisdom and political abili- 
ties." Again, what was it that enabled Cleopatra to 
bring even the great Caesar to her feet? Not graces of 
feature alone. Plutarch says:— " Her beauty, it is said, 
was neither astonishing nor inimitable, but it derived force 
from her wit and the fascination of her manner, which 
was absolutely irresistible." She was finely educated, 
her linguistic acquirements were such that she could 
converse with the ambassadors from all parts of the 
world without an interpreter, and she had extraordinary 
command of all her faculties. Our author remarks, " Her 



40 

voice was delightfully melodious and had the same 
variety of modulation as an instrument of many strings." 

Now it is not to be inferred that we believe it possible 
to be beautiful or in the highest degree attractive, even 
though the features are defective. No, a fine form is an 
essential element of real beauty, and however generously 
endowed in other respects, Helen, Aspasia, Lucretia, 
Judith, and Cleopatra may have been, they could not 
have made such indelible impressions on the world's 
progress had it not been for the seductive spell of lovely 
forms. 

As to the traits most admirable in " this goodly and 
angelic creature," as Chaucer characterizes woman, we 
will present our views in the language of the philosopher, 
Herbert Spencer, in his work, Education: Intellectual, 
Moral, and Physical (1861). " Men," says he, "care com- 
paratively little for erudition in women, but very much 
for physical beauty and good nature and good sense. 
How many conquests are made by the blue-stocking 
through her extensive knowledge of history? What 
man ever fell in love with a woman because she under- 
stood Italian ? Where is the Edwin who was brought 
to his Angelina's feet by her German ? But rosy cheeks 
and laughing eyes are great attractions. A finely- 
rounded figure draws admiring glances. The loveliness 
and good humor that overflowing health produces go a 
great way toward establishing attachments. Every one 
knows cases where bodily perfections, in the absence of 
all other recommendations, have excited a passion that 
carries all before it. But scarcely any one can point to 
a case where intellectual acquirements, apart from moral 



4i 

or physical attributes, have raised such a feeling. The 
truth is that out of many elements uniting in various 
proportions to produce in a man's breast that complex 
emotion which we call love, the strongest are those 
produced by physical attractions ; the next in order of 
strength are those produced by moral attractions ; the 
weakest are those produced by intellectual attractions, 
and even these are dependent much less upon acquired 
knowledge than on natural faculty, quickness, wit, 
insight." Longfellow favors this view of what is attract- 
ive in woman's inner nature. Says he : — 

"What I most prize in woman 
Is her affections, not her intellect ; 
The intellect is finite; but the affections are infinite 
and cannot be exhausted." 

Let us recapitulate. Personal beauty, a hopeful, affec- 
tionate nature, and good common sense and insight, are 
the traits men prize most in women. Not great learning, 
argumentative ability, and the like. Such is man's taste, 
and, as tersely put in one of George Eliot's works, 
" man's taste is woman's test." These statements should 
be duly weighed and remembered by parents and educa- 
tors. The cry of similar higher education for the sexes, 
and in union too, which is fashionable just now, is con- 
trary to common sense and still more so to reason. 
Man and woman are very unlike, physically and mentally; 
but their unlikeness is calculated to subserve their very 
different ends in creation. United, they supplement each 
other and are not like twin kernels in an almond-shell. 
What is wanting in the one should be supplied by the 



42 

other and the result should be a unity. Does it not lie 
to sense then that the system of education of each 
should be of a nature that will promote in the highest 
degree possible the development of each in the proper 
direction? On this subject we find the ideas of St. 
Pierre so interesting that we cannot refrain from quoting 
a few lines from him (Etudes de la Nature y 1784), " Man," 
says he, " without woman and woman without man are 
imperfect beings in the order of nature. But the greater 
the contrast in their characters the more complete union 
there is in their harmonies. It is from their opposition 
in talents, tastes, and fortunes that the most intense and 
durable affection is produced." Again, he says, " Why 
are there so few happy marriages among us [the French]? 
I answer, because with us the sexes have divested them- 
selves each of its proper nature and assumed that of 
the other; because the women with us adopt the manners 
(inceurs) of men from education, and men the manners of 
women from habit." Plato noted down a great truth 
when he wrote: — "The unlike longs for and loves the 
unlike." It may be well to distinctly state that we do 
not wish to convey in the foregoing remarks the idea 
that it is improper to let children under twelve years of 
age say, associate together and receive the same instruc- 
tion, for we are in favor of that practice. We know of 
no sensible reason why they should not be educated 
similarly and together up to that time. Their mutual 
influence is advantageous to both, and the average girl 
can very easily learn as much as it is possible to get the 
average boy to do, without injuring herself in the least. 



THE BASIS OF BEAUTY. 



In her charm'd cup health's Goddess 
The winning spell of beauty brings. 

It is not so easy, as on first thought it might seem, to 
say what is the foundation of beauty. Youth and beauty 
are sometimes associated together in our minds ; and 
although the brow of age may be richly endowed with 
the comely possession, yet it must be confessed that 
beauty of the real bewitching type is found only among 
those in the flush of youth. The beauty of age appeals 
to our moral perceptions and intelligence, and grows on 
us gradually; the beauty of youth speaks to our feeling, 
our entire sensibilities, and wins us at once, or, as 
Chaucer aptly puts it : — 

" Fresshe beautee sleth me sodenly." 

However, youth may be present without beauty, and 
beauty is not incompatible with years. Helen was over 
forty when Paris fell in love with her; Aspasia was 
thirty-six when wedded by Pericles ; Cleopatra was over 
thirty when she fascinated Marc Antony ; Diana de 
Poitiers was thirty-six when Henry II., although only 
half as old, was carried off by her; Madame de Main- 
tenon was forty-three when she won Louis XIV. ; 

(43) 



44 

Ninon de L'Enclos was seventy-two when Abbe de 
Verais was charmed by her ; and at forty years of age 
Madame Recamier was universally regarded as the 
prettiest woman in Europe. The truth is, there are 
types of beauty which correspond for the most part with 
periods in our existence. The outline may be the same, 
but as a whole there is much difference between a beauty 
at twenty-five and at forty. This should be remembered 
always, for many even far advanced in the noon of life 
ridiculously disfigure themselves by aping Hebe's ap- 
pearance. They try to do what is against nature. 
Racine finely expresses the idea when he makes Athalie, 
when relating her vision of her vain mother, Jezabel, 
say :• — 

" Elle eut soin de peindre et d'orner son visage 
Pour reparer des ans V irreparable outrage." 

Still, the changes of years should only cover the beauty 
of youth with the mellow sweetness of riper age. Now, 
taking everything into consideration, one thing always 
accompanies beauty, upon which it very largely depends, 
and that is health. Who ever saw a beautiful unhealthy 
child ? Who ever saw a lovely sickly maiden ? Who 
ever saw a pleasing-faced dyspeptic ? But some one 
may ask, what is health ? Well, it is easier to conceive 
than to express what it is ; but Broussais, the celebrated 
French physician, in his work on Principles of Physiologi- 
cal Medicine (1828), tells us what it is in clear enough 
-phrase. " Health," says he, " is the result of regular 
activity of the functions ; disease of their irregularity ; 
and death of their cessation/' Structure and function 
are closely related ; whatever affects the one affects the 



45 

other. For example, any injury to the brain affects the 
mind, and any mental disturbance reacts on the brain. 
In the development of the organism function precedes 
structure, which would lead us to believe, in accordance 
with the above definition, that if the functional action is 
perfect, the structure will be perfeet also. Pain is a cer- 
tain indication of disease ; it is the eloquent voice of 
health in distress. We should never be conscious of 
the possession of any organ of the body ; for if we are, 
something is wrong. Life actions vary within wide 
limits; sometimes they are active and sometimes inactive 
even in the same individual. Nor is this variation in 
intensity incompatible with health of structure at least. 
In hibernating animals — those which lapse into a state of 
torpor during the winter, bats, for example — we see life 
so far reduced that we are at a loss to know whether it is 
not entirely extinct at times ; yet they wake up sound as 
ever. Again, the sum of the actions of life varies greatly. 
All the functions may be regular, but their volume is 
inconstant. Thus the heart may beat regularly seventy 
times per minute, but the force of the beat is not neces- 
sarily always the same. The strength of individuals is 
not alike ; one man can lift only one hundred pounds, 
while another can lift as readily five hundred. Pre- 
suming that the nature of health is now sufficiently well 
understood, we may declare that if we are in search of 
the beautiful we need not expect to find it but among 
those in whom there is an average degree of healthy 
functional activity. To mark how essential health is to 
beauty, in our estimation, we will recite a little histoire. 
When Saturnia (Juno), pitying the Grecians, who were 



4 6 

being overpowered by the Trojans, whom all-powerful 
Jove was aiding, resolved to come to their assistance, 
Homer tells us that as a ruse de guerre she decided on 

" The old, yet still successful, cheat of love." 

And how did she go about it ? She withdrew to her 
apartment, 

" Sacred to dress and beauty's pleasing care," 

and decked herself in the most becoming fashion; but in 
order to be sure of overcoming, she called on Venus for 
a gift — her girdle, for 

" In this was every art and every charm 
To win the wisest, and the coldest warm." 

The amiable goddess having granted the request, she 
then matched her beauty against her husband's wisdom, 
and the result was that she 

" Lulled the Lord of Thunder in her arms ; " 

and in keeping him away from the Trojan camp, the 
Grecians were successful in the fight that ensued, which 
led to final victory. What was this witching gift of 
Venus ? What was this ambrosial possession ? Was it 
not the badge of ideal health ? Let us take it as that. 
Now, although the principle, void of health void of 
beauty, holds good in the abstract, many passably 
healthy people are by no means beautiful, but they are 
nearly in every instance attractive, at least. In her Let- 
ters to Young Ladies, Mrs. Sigourney is right in saying, 
" Men prize more than we are aware the health-beaming 
countenance," No better advice can be given to those 



47 

who are ambitious to be pleasing to the eye, and every 
other way than that they should endeavor to get into a 
state of health, for therein lies the true secret and art of 
promoting and preserving beauty. Get on intimate 
terms with Hygiea, and learn her ways and follow them. 
We believe it wise to consult a physician about ugliness, 
as well as the diseases that completely disable us. 
Beauty pays, and it is a duty to resort to the most skill- 
ful to obtain it. It is very often the case that people 
might easily be more healthy than they are, and conse- 
quently far more beautiful and pleasing. According to 
custom, it is only when the scales turn against them, 
and very often when there is no room for hope, that 
people search for improvement of health. This is en- 
tirely wrong. As Galen says, " The object of medicine 
is health," but its most important office is to preserve, to 
foster it, not to search fpr it when it is completely gone, 
or almost so. Laying aside all consideration of the ad- 
vantages to self, there are reasons for holding it as a 
solemn duty to make and preserve ourselves as God-like, 
as free from unsoundness, as possible. Every one has a 
powerful enough incentive — the single, the desire to be 
attractive to others ; and the married, the additional im- 
mediate desire to transmit to their prospective offspring 
the priceless heritage of good constitutions, on which so 
much of life's pleasures and successes depend. 

Heraclides, a Grecian philosopher, said he " would 
marry a handsome woman for the sake of his children ;" 
but it is extremely probable that, like Childe Harold, 

" To the beauteous form he ^vas not blind j " 



4 8 

but, waiving that point, we think he knew that, being 
handsome, she could scarely be otherwise than healthy 
and cheerful. And here let us remark that no dowry 
can compensate for want of health and its attendant 
cheerlessness in a wife. As Mrs. Sigourney truly says, 
" The perpetual influence of a sickly and mournful wife 
is as a blight upon those prospects which allure men to 
matrimony." On the other hand, the best dowry a wife 
can bring is health and good nature. Such a woman is 
bright and happy, and, in being so, is a prize of inesti- 
mable value. 

" Those smiles and glances let me see 
That make the miser's treasure poor." — Burns. 

The people of Sparta — 

" Sparta still with female beauty gay," 

as Homer sang — were renowned for their physical perfec- 
tion and prowess, and these qualities were brought about, 
in a great degree, by their own "efforts to be healthy and 
strong — by their physical culture. They were the glo- 
rious results of their strict regimen and systematic exer- 
cises, of their Olympian and other national athletic 
games and sports. From among them Phidias selected 
models for his grand works, and the other great sculptors 
took from them the ideas of their Venuses and Apollos. 
Their beauty, copied in marble, still exists to elicit our 
admiration and to serve as aesthetic types of our race at 
its best. Art owes an everlasting debt of gratitude to 
their great law-giver, Lycurgus, whose highest ambition 
was to make his people a race of perfect men and women, 



49 

and whose teachings greatly contributed towards the 
production of that enviable result. 

Let us try to be healthy, and beauty such as graced 
the Spartans will follow; the intrinsic excellence of our 
nature will be mirrored in our appearance. This is the 
only way to lay the foundation, the only way to raise up 
beauty of the genuine sort. Beauty born of health is 
natural, real, and without affectation ; it is free and 
graceful. Any attempt to repress emotions gives an air 
of conceit ; nor is apathy desirable, so we should try to 
be sound and serene within, and let the sweetness of our 
nature brim over without thought. Happy emotions are 
always happily expressed ; looks as well as language 
rarely fail to divulge the real state of the feelings and 
thoughts. Affectation and deceit are at best but thinly 
veiled. The hallowed soul is always circled with a halo 
of glory. 



BEAUTY AN IMPROVABLE HERITAGE. 



"By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid, Art, 

Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow." — De.yden. 

There is nothing more certain, whether the doctrine of 
evolution be true in its entirety or not, that the physique 
of every one of us is more or less like that of ancestors 
for many generation back ; and as stated by Mr. Galton 
in his remarkable work Hereditary Genius (1869)/' A 
man's natural abilities are derived from inheritance under 
exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical 
features." The grand outlines of our frames and char- 
acters — moral and intellectual — were settled before we 
were born. We may go farther and say that some of 
our traits — physical and mental — were foreshadowed 
thousands of years before our birth. This is true of 
racial peculiarities. Now, this principle of inheritance 
should be clearly understood by everybody, and it should 
be kept in mind, most especially by the young with 
marriageable intentions. Very many whose miserable 
constitutions entirely unfit them for parentage rush rashly 
into the matrimonial state and, unlike Samson's father, 
do not pause for a moment to devote a thought " to the 
child that shall be born." They sorely regret it ; their 
imprudence bears sorrowful fruit. Persons afflicted with 

(50) 



Si 

any serious constitutional disease or condition which 
may be transmitted should not in justice to humanity 
become parents ; for if they do, they almost inevitably 
bequeath to their offspring a woful inheritance and have 
to bear the pain of seeing their innocent children suffer 
and die prematurely. These matters should be of still 
greater concern when the question of the propriety of 
blood relatives getting married comes up, for in them 
any taint is transmitted with great certainty and severity. 
Some people hold that under no circumstances should 
cousins intermarry, but we are not of that opinion. If 
both parties are strong and free from morbid troubles of 
any kind, physical or mental, and particularly if they 
are of contrasting temperaments, there is no sufficient 
reason why they should not marry if they are so disposed. 
We speak positively on this subject, because we have 
given it full consideration. If evidence is required in 
support of our position, it can be readily found in the 
history of many peoples, for example the Jews, among 
whom close marriages have nearly always been the rule, 
yet they are a remarkably healthy race and their average 
longevity is considerably higher than that of the rest of 
the community where they may be found. This subject 
of unfit people getting married is one of most serious im- 
port, view it from whatever standpoint we may. We 
have no desire to exaggerate the evil ; indeed, its enormity 
cannot be overestimated. We compile the following fig- 
ures from the United States Census Reports of 1870: — 
22.4 per cent, of all deaths are of children within one 
year ; 42 per cent, of all are of children under five years ; 
and 45.4 per cent, of all are children under ten years. 



52 

We gather from the statistics given in the Reports of the 
Board of Health, that in Philadelphia, on an average, 25.16 
per cent, of the whole mortality is of children within one 
year; 40.49 per cent, of the whole of children under five 
years; and nearly 50 per cent, of the whole of children 
under ten years. The people are so defective in vital 
force that one-fourth of the whole is cut off within their 
first year ! over two-fifths under five ! and nearly one-half 
under ten ! Alas ! the poor innocents ! And how sad 
to think of the amount of parental strength and care spent 
for naught ! We grant that epidemic diseases swell up 
the mortality among children, but, making every allow- 
ance for them, it is still appalling. Maturity and strength 
should be essential conditions in those about to enter 
wedlock; and we might add beauty, for ugliness is 
mainly a sign of defectiveness. It is not right to marry 
very early and it is not wise to marry very late in life. 
Nor should there be a great deal of difference between, 
the ages of the couple; but it is well as a rule for the 
husband to be a few years the senior, because a woman 
matures a little earlier than a man ; and also because it 
is hard for him to exercise complete moral control over 
her if he is not the elder. The exceptions obtain when 
the pair are not very young or are markedly contrasting 
in nature. We are lapsing into a digression, but we may 
remark that when a man advanced in life chooses a bride 
he may expect his children to be nearly all boys ; and a 
delicate man of any age who chooses a robust bride of 
active temperament may entertain a like expectation. 
The average proportion of the sexes at birth, as shown by 
the fullest statistics, is twenty-one males to twenty females; 



1 



53 

but before the end of the first year they are equal in 
number. From what precedes, there is certainly one 
lesson which it is proper to draw, and that is, in all 
cases people should become as perfect as it is in their 
power to be before entering the marital portals. All 
taints, however slight, should be cleared from the system, 
for let it be known that if degeneracy once begins to 
creep into a family very few generations will follow until 
it becomes extinct; its knell will soon be knolled. Those, 
therefore, who look forward to immortality through the 
perpetuation of their line should beware of the slightest 
deterioration in themselves. Regeneration should be 
aimed at, if there is any evidence of any deviation from 
health ; and how ? In her excellent Letters to Mothers, 
Mrs. Sigourney writes : — " I would say to every mother, 
study the constitution of your babe ; if it have any mor- 
bid tendencies, either hereditary or acquired, bear steadily 
upon them with the regimen best adapted to their cure." 
This is the right method to pursue at any age, and if it is 
properly done by us adults, it will not be so hard to care 
for the babies should we have such blessings in store for 
us. It is not a little merely that can be done in this way; 
more we believe than can be done with drugs and almost 
everything that can be done with them even in the hands 
of one as skillful in their use as yEsculapius himself. 

As bearing on beauty, of course the regimen or proper 
method of life is of paramount importance, so we will 
lay down some rules on the subject, taking it in its 
widest sense. Now in this regard the maxim of maxims 
runs in this wise : — Live in accordance with the laws of 
health, — physical and moral, — and labor diligently to 



54 

development, both body and mind. Thus can we make 
ourselves sound and strong and honorable and success- 
ful in life; thus can we have rounded forms and rosy 
cheeks and sparkling eyes. To be more explicit we 
will roughly sketch a programme. 

Take the advice of Socrates, "Avoid excess in every- 
thing;" and remember what Plato says, "A temperate 
man is one who has moderate desires." 

Do not lapse into indolence, for as Byron well ex- 
presses it: — 

" Many of the ills o'er which man grieves, 

And still more woman, spring from not employing 

Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying." 

Shun luxury and dissipation of every kind, and do not 
be the slave of any bad habit. What evils people inflict 
on themselves by the excessive indulgence of proper 
appetites and the encouragement of improper ones ! 
The use of unnecessary and injurious agents, such as 
alcoholic liquors, tobacco, and condiments, is sapping 
the vitality of the race. These things should be touched 
with caution as articles that sooner or later destroy 
health, happiness, and life. 

Eat regularly of simple, wholesome fare. No injunc- 
tion is more worthy of attention than this one. Eating 
is a matter of profound importance. He who does not 
know how to eat properly does not know how to live prop- 
erly, which we are afraid must be said of a great many. 
Most people seem to hang up reason with their hats 
before sitting down at the table. Do we not every day 
see people esteemed wise use dishes of the most extreme 



55 

qualities, digestible and indigestible, sweet and sour, 
warm and cold, at the same meal? Morbid tastes have 
vitiated cookery; and, moreover, this art, which is of 
far more importance than the art of medicine, is in the 
hands of the most ignorant of the people. The health 
of the community is more in charge of the cooks than 
the physicians. Cookery should not only be simplified, 
but be placed in the hands of persons of intelligence. It 
is high time for reform in these matters. 

Retire to sleep at a fixed hour and for a fixed length 
of time, and keep in mind that heated, badly-ventilated 
bedrooms, are hotbeds of imbecility. We are not in- 
clined to lay down any length of time as proper to devote 
to sleep, for it is largely a matter of habit; but we may 
state that six or seven hours is sufficient for any one. It 
is very easy to let the system lapse into a condition of 
langour, which will call for almost continuous sleep. In- 
dulging such sluggishness is ruinous to health. It is 
not the people who labor much mentally or physically 
who desire most sleep; it is the people who do little or 
nothing. We cannot sufficiently condemn the fashion- 
able practice (among ladies) of taking a nap of two or 
three hours' duration in the afternoon. There is no 
more fertile source of debility and misery than this, — it 
does not bring the wished-for refreshment and buoyancy 
of spirits ; 

" The languid eye, the cheek 
Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk, 
And wither'd muscle, and the vapid soul 
Reproach their owner with that love of rest 
To which he forfeits e'en that rest he loves." 

Cowper. 



56 

Life is most pleasurable to those who are active all 
day long and every day, to those who rise with the sun. 
Get up early, then. In the morning all is fresh and 
sweet; the air is balmy and the face of nature more 
luring than at any other time. Poets have vied with one 
another in their attempts to describe the beauties of a 
summer morning; but its chief charm is its healing 
breath, its life-nourishing virtues. 

Be cleanly. A plunge, or, what is quite as good, a 
sponge bath, daily, will be of benefit; wear easy-fitting, 
comfortable, seasonable clothing; breathe pure air, and 
take plenty of exercise. One of Bacon's health precepts 
was, " Never keep the body in the same position above 
half an hour at a time." 

Discipline the mind by thought and store it with 
knowldge; cultivate a taste for society and indulge 
reasonably in amusements, for, as Solomon tells us, "A 
merry heart doth good like a medicine." Reverence 
truth, respect justice, try to do as much good as possible, 
and be happy by having something important to do, some- 
thing dear to love, and something worthy to hope for. 

These are some of the duties we owe to ourselves and 
our descendants, and if we are already parents we should 
see that our children are trained in accordance with 
them. Thus can we contribute our quota towards the 
verification of the declaration in the celebrated Vestiges 
of Creation, "we may safely pronounce that the human 
type is likely yet to experience considerable improve- 
ment." 

Bacon was keenly alive to the importance of the 
substance of the preceding notes. In his flattering Dis- 
course in the Praise of His Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, 



57 

he uses the following words : — " Now to pass to the 
excellencies of her person, the view of them wholly 
and not severally do make so sweet a wonder as I fear 
to divide them. Again, nobility extracted out of the 
royal and victorious line of the kings of England ; yea> 
both roses red and white do as well flourish in her 
nobility as in her beauty, as health, such as was like she 
should have that was brought forth by two of the most 
goodly princes of the world, in the strength of their 
years, in the heat of their love ; that hath been injured 
neither with an over-liberal nor over-curious diet ; that 
hath not been sustained by an umbratile life still under 
the roof, but strengthened by the use of the pure and 
open air, that still retaineth flower and vigor of youth. 
For the beauty and many graces of her presence what 
colors are fine enough for such a portraiture ! " He goes 
on to tell other secrets of her attractiveness, and con- 
tinues, "what life, what edge is there in those words and 
glances wherewith at pleasure she can give a man long 
to think, be it that she mean to daunt him, to encourage 
him, or to amaze him ! How admirable is her discourse, 
whether it be in learning; state, or love ! what variety of 
knowledge, what rareness of conceit, what choice of 
words, what grace of utterance." Our author clothes 
his heroine with all that is desirable in man and woman 
combined. He conceived her a Judith, of whom it was 
said, " There is not such a woman from one end of the 
earth to the other both for beauty of person and wisdom 
of words." — Ecclesiasticus. 

We will now say a few words as to methods of 
directly improving the figure in general or in part 



58 

To add to one's size and strength is, in a measure, a 
matter of exercise and diet. Bringing the muscles and 
all other parts of the body into greater healthy activity 
leads to their growth. Everbody has a vague idea that 
this is so, but there is no need for vagueness. Nearly 
any one, by using a couple of two to ten pound dumb- 
bells three times a day and ten or fifteen minutes each 
time, can within a month add two or three inches to the 
circumference of the chest and ten per cent, to the 
strength. 

In cases of fracture of the extremities, in the treatment 
of which it is necessary to keep the limb as still as 
possible, its thickness and power soon diminish. Under 
the circumstances we have seen the circumference of the 
leg at the calf lose three inches in eight weeks. A re- 
duction of the entire system is induced by a sedentary 
mode of life. If we do not move we soon lose the 
power of motion. Every one who does not walk several 
miles daily cannot expect to be strong. And here we 
would remark that no other exercise can take the place 
of walking, for no other so gently calls into activity so 
many muscles of the body. Either directly for progression 
or indirectly to balance the trunk and head, it brings every 
voluntary muscle into play. For the development of 
special sets of muscles, special exercises are in order, as 
in the instance of the dumb-bells to invigorate the arms 
and chest. We might cite unlimited illustrations of 
those naturally delicate who acquired strength by their 
own exertions, but we need not do more than note the 
cases of Cicero, the celebrated Roman councilor and 
orator, and Dr. Winship. Early in life Cicero repaired 



59 

to the gymnasia of Athens and laid in a store of vital 
force which he husbanded throughout his career, for the 
advantages of it he well understood. Says Plutarch, 
" He was so exact, indeed, in all respects, in the care of 
his health, that he had his stated hours for frictions and 
for the exercise of walking. By this management of his 
constitution he gained a sufficient stock of health and 
strength for the labors and fatigues which he underwent." 
The case of the late Dr. Winship of Boston is a most 
striking one. At twenty years of age he was an invalid, 
so weak and sickly that none of his friends had any hope 
of his living for more than a few years, but, as everybody 
has heard, he turned out to be the strongest man in 
America. One thousand pounds seemed little in his 
hands. He frequently lifted fourteen hundred pounds — 
an almost incredible feat. Now his strength was the 
result of strict compliance with the rules of health and 
the intelligent practice of gymnastic exercises. Nor did 
he run completely to muscle, for he was a distinguished 
professsor of literature. This whole matter is finely 
summed up in Thomson's couplet — 

" Health is the vital principal of bliss 
And exercise of health.'' 

Keeping the figure erect should be encouraged, enjoined, 
in fact, from early childhood, for it is necessary to health 
and beauty. Walking early gives rise to bow-legs if the 
system is not well nourished, and a great many children 
are ruined in the schools, which, instead of assisting 
their mental and bodily development and growth, actually 



6o 

dwarf them in both. Sitting in a bent posture, in badly- 
ventilated rooms, for four or five hours daily, cannot miss 
to do harm in any case. When will people learn that 
correct physical conditions are essential to mental im- 
provement ? When will educators learn that a system 
of education which tends to ruin the health of the pupils 
is radically wrong ? It is not strange that there is a pop- 
ular idea that it is not right to send children to school, 
or in other words, to begin to teach them before they are 
seven or eight years of age. It is believed that no dif- 
ference how healthy a child may be, learning will blanch 
and weaken it. What nonsense ! Most children learn 
more within their first seven years than they do during 
the next fourteen, aye, during the remainder of their 
lives. If teaching were done in accordance with the dic- 
tates of nature it would have no injurious effects, and it 
might be begun in infancy. But to return to our im- 
mediate subject. Crookedness can be corrected, and as 
a means the daily use of dumb-bells, or carrying some 
rather heavy object, — a little bag of beans for instance, — 
on the head, fifteen or twenty minutes, morning and even- 
ing, will tend greatly towards producing the desired re- 
sult. In parts of Spain, Italy, Egypt, India, and other 
oriental countries, where young girls especially are in the 
habit of carrying water-urns on their heads, their beau- 
tiful figures and graceful movements are the admiration 
of all intelligent travelers,. Shoulder-braces, like braces 
for the limbs, are useful, and where there is serious spinal 
disease threatening, timely support of some kind may 
avert it, or at least prevent great deformity. 

It may not be out of place to state that if the figure is 






6i 

what it should be, the line of the spine is straight, or in 
other words, there is no lateral curvature. A deformity 
of this kind is very ugly ; uglier if possible than a bend 
forward. Alexander the Great was not as beautiful as 
Richard the Third. In the adult a straight spine, antero- 
posteriorly, with the head balanced on it at right angles, 
is extremely unattractive. As remarked by Fau and 
Knox, " In the infant the spine is straight, and when a 
person grows up with this form, as many do, it presents 
the oddest sight in the world." Viewed in profile, the 
back ought to have four gentle curves, but the nape of 
the neck, the spine at the waist, and the heels should be 
in a perpendicular line. 

To make the body lithe and graceful in movement, 
calisthenic and gymnastic and also less systematic 
exercises, and particularly dancing — motion's poetry, 
should be practiced. Children should be taught to 
dance early, so that the great advantages of proper per- 
sonal bearing may be secured in growing up. The frame 
and habits in children are pliable, and if they get twisted 
into the right bent, it will be maintained throughout 
life. Treating on education, Locke writes : — " Dancing 
being that which gives graceful motion to all our lives, 
and, above all, manliness and a becoming confidence to 
young persons, I think cannot be learned too early." 
Free, sweeping, unconscious movements are always 
graceful. Mere strength has little to do with grace, and 
any system of physical culture which does not include 
the freest movements of all the joints and muscles too, 
contributes little to grace of carriage. To move grace- 
fully requires persistent effort for a time; just as we 



62 

commit to memory a piece of poetry by repeatedly read- 
ing it, so we acquire grace in motion by repetition until 
it can be carried on without thinking. 

The art of moving properly, as also the art of think- 
ing properly, is largely an acquirement. In his cele- 
brated work, The Conduct of the Understanding \ the 
author quoted above says : — " As it is in the body, so 
it is in the mind ; practice makes it what it is. And 
most even of those excellencies which are looked on 
as natural endowments will be found, when examined 
into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and 
to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions." 
This is an extreme view. The modern scientific school 
lays much emphasis on inherited instincts, or, rather, 
latent propensities. Having the hereditary proclivity, it 
is easy to adopt the actions of body or mind in that 
particular line. This doctrine affords us a powerful 
motive for self-improvement that the other does not, 
as we have already shown. 

There is another subject we must not overlook, and 
that is the one of fatness. In a balanced condition of the 
system the person is of medium stoutness, which is most 
compatible with beauty. 

Any tendency to extreme leanness or fatness should 
because for inquiry in regard to it, for both conditions 
are inimical to comfort as well as beauty. Thinness is 
the worse disfiguring evil ; Prince Henry is uglier than 
Falstaff. Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, says, 
" Persons who are naturally very fat are apt to die earlier 
than those who are slender." This knowledge may be 
a source of satisfaction to those of " a lean and hungry 



63 

aspect," like Cassius. Although fatness generally makes 
the person more amiable, and brings many friends, it 
may be desirable to reduce it. To accomplish this pur- 
pose, the regimen we have laid down should be followed, 
to begin with, and it may not be necessary to do more ; 
but if it is, we recommend extra exercise of body and 
mind, short allowance of time for sleep, scanty diet, and 
abstinence from starchy and sugary articles of food. If 
these directions are observed, medicines, strictly so 
called, will rarely be necessary ; and if they are [not ob- 
served, medicines will, in the end, do more harm than 
good. Vinegar is popularly believed to be an excellent 
agent for removing obesity, and the belief is not entirely 
without foundation, but the continued use of large 
amounts of it will injure the system. A more reliable 
remedy, but one quite as injurious, is the Solution of 
potash {Liquor potassce), of which the dose is ten to 
sixty drops in a glass of water or milk. It should be 
taken an hour or so before meals, and the same may be 
said of vinegar. 

To grow fat, do not exercise much, keep the mind tran- 
quil, take plenty of sleep, and use plenty of starchy and 
sugary articles of food, as well as all others in abundance. 
All the medicine required is something to sharpen the 
appetite, and any bitter tea will answer that purpose. 



THE HEAD. 



" The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.' 1 — Byron. 

The head is the masterpiece of nature. It is the seat 
of mind ; and its superior development and perfection 
in man over all other creatures give him power to sway 
throughout creation the sceptre of sovereignty. Beauty 
and use are united in it in a pre-eminent degree. We are 
at once struck by the simplicity of its design as a whole, 
and its adaptation to the ends in view, which are very 
numerous. Besides affording almost complete protec- 
tion against injuries from blows and the like, the 
delicate brain, made up of a multitude of parts, is admira- 
bly accommodated, and so are all the organs of special 
sense with their accessories. 

In treating of the head we will, following the example 
of the phrenologist, exclude the face, and begin by giving 
some idea of the nature of its contents and their connec- 
tions. Within the skull or bony casement rests, as we 
have already hinted, the grand central mass of the nervous 
system — the brain, and from it run a thick cord which 
traverses the spine and a dozen pairs of large nerves which 
are distributed to the organs of the special senses — see- 
ing, hearing, smelling, and tasting — and to the heart, 
lungs, and digestive apparatus. The spinal cord in 

(64) 



65 

passing down gives off at intervals of half an inch or 
more thirty-two pairs of nerves, which are distributed to 
all the muscles and the skin. Each nerve is composed 
of an immense number of threads, and these are of two 
kinds, one of which carries in and the other carries out 
impressions. 

The nerves remind us of the wires which are spread 
throughout the country for telegraphic purposes, and the 
working agent is perhaps similar. And if we can fancy 
the upper part of the brain to be the office of the presi- 
dent, with branch offices and officers along its base and 
the line of the spinal cord, we can recognize in the 
operations of the nervous system a resemblance to the 
telegraph company in this : that in the performance of 
its functions rarely do matters save of general or other- 
wise great importance come to the notice of the presid- 
ing genius — intellect — no direction being required in the 
performance of ordinary, habitual actions. 

Now, mind is the manifestation or result of the func- 
tional action of the brain ; indeed, of the whole nervous 
system. Herein lies the clue to the only successful 
method of mental improvement as regards capacity and 
strength. The nervous system, especially the brain, 
must be the medium of our efforts ; and the pregnant 
statement of Celsus : " Indolence enervates the body, 
while labor strengthens it," is just as true here as of the 
muscles of the arm. In either case exercise promotes 
growth and power. Knowing this, we experience no 
difficulty in explaining a circumstance often observed, 
viz., that persons of little mental power to begin with 
by perseverance frequently surpass in the end those 



66 

born with what the world is pleased to call genius. 
Activity of mind brings the needed strength. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds well says : — " If you have great talents, industry 
will improve them ; if you have but moderate abilities, 
industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied 
to well-directed labor, nothing is to be obtained without 
it." Thinking is an exhausting exercise.* Times ago it 
was believed even by intelligent people that mental 
activity did not demand material nourishment ; but we 
now know that if the mind is actively engaged a very large 
amount of blood is consumed. In the general way the 
large proportion of one-fifth of all the blood goes to the 
brain. , 

A brief statement of the nature of the mind will be 
in place here. Now in its simplest form the nervous 
system consists of a little bulb of gray, jelly-like matter, 
with two nerve-fibres, one of which conveys impulses to 
the centre and is called sensory , and the other conveys 
impulses from the centre and is called motory. An 
impression on the extremity of the sensory nerve is 
carried to the central bulb, which is thereby excited into 
action, and a force being produced is conveyed along 
the motory nerve which causes the part, the muscle to 
which this nerve is distributed, to contract, to move. 
This is what is known as reflex-action. Elementary units 
such as this compose the most complicate nervous 
system, and many, indeed, the greater portion, of the 
actions of man even are reflex, automatic. In the higher 
animals and man, an impression conveyed to the central 
mass or brain gives rise to consciousness, and from it 
results feeling, which is either pleasurable or painful ; 



6; 

or intellect (understanding, intelligence); or will (voli- 
tion, the controlling power). On analyzing the intellect 
it is found to consist of memory (retention), or registered 
sensations and judgments which form knowledge ; com- 
parison (discernment, reason), of which the result is an 
inference or judgment; and agreement, or sense of simi- 
larity. Emotions arise from objective, axid passions from 
subjective, sensations ; an idea is a perception or item of 
consciousness ; imagination is the power of bringing to 
consciousness of memories, and is dependent on memory 
and volition ; and fancy is the same as imagination, 
with this difference, that there is a contrast in the pre- 
sentation. Of the three mental elements — feeling, in- 
tellect, and will — the proper object of the first is beauty, 
of the second truth, and of the third good. 

We now pass to the study of the exterior of the head. 
The size and shape of the skull are held by many to be 
correct indexes of the size of the brain and the develop- 
ment of particular parts of it. This is perhaps true, 
but in any given case the appearance may mislead us, 
for the thickness of the scalp and skull is subject to 
great variations in different persons. It is also held that 
different parts of the brain are the seats of particular 
faculties, and that the size of the brain, as a whole, and 
of its parts, give us an idea of the capacity of the mind 
and of its various faculties. All this we grant as in the 
main correct. The most respectable psychologists as 
well as the phrenologists do so. 

According to rules long in vogue and which are ac- 
ceptable still to many artists, the perpendicular depth of 
the head should be one-eighth the statue; its length 



68 

should be the same, and its breadth should be three- 
fourths its length. From an extensive series of experi- 
ments, it would seem that if the length of the head be 
taken as one hundred, the average breadth in the Euro- 
pean race is seventy-eight. But in any race — our own, 
say — the fullness of particular parts of it differs greatly in 
different persons. It may be full in front, the seat of per- 
ception and reflection ; or on the top, the seat of the moral 
qualities, such as benevolence and veneration ; or on the 
side towards the forehead, the seat of the intellectual sen- 
timents, such as hope, mirth, wonder, and ideality ; or 
around the ear, the seat of the animal propensities, such as 
gluttony ; or above and behind, the seat of the moral sen- 
timents, such as firmness and self-esteem; or down towards 
the neck, the seat of the domestic propensities, such as the 
love of children and home. These are the main lines of 
development, and knowing what they are in any head 
we can closely estimate the outline traits of the person's 
mental nature. In a woman it is very desirable that the 
regions of perception, of the moral qualities, of the intel- 
lectual sentiments, and of the domestic propensities 
should be well developed. When these are defective 
and the other regions full, we advise lovers to look out, 
for there is danger ahead. If Socrates had been ac- 
quainted with these facts he might have escaped the 
infliction of his Xanthippe. 

The following are the average measurements of the 
heads of adult males (in women they are less) : — From 
the little bump at the lowest point of the skull behind, 
to the point of greatest prominence of the middle and 
lower part of the forehead (from the occipital spine to indi- 
viduality), seven and one-half inches ; from the occipital 



6 9 

spine to the hole of the ear, four and three-eighths 
inches; from the hole of the ear to the bump of indi- 
viduality, five inches; from the hole of the ear to the high- 
est point of the middle of the head, six inches ; from side to 
side just above the ears, five and three-fifths inches; from 
the most prominent point of the side of the head towards 
the back portion (cautiousness) to the corresponding 
point on the other side, five and three-fourths inches; and 
between the most prominent points (those of ideality) at 
the upper and outer parts of the forehead, five and one- 
sixth inches. The horizontal circumference taken just 
above the eyebrows is twenty-two inches, and a line 
from the root of the nose up over the crown and down 
to the occipital spine is a little over thirteen inches. 

The following extract from the System of Phrenology 
{184.2) of Combe, who ranks with Gall and Spurtzheim 
as a phrenological investigator, will be read with interest 
by the small-pated fraternity: — "To stamp the impress 
of a single mind upon a nation, to infuse strength into 
thoughts and depth into feeling which shall command 
the homage of enlightened men in every age, — in short, 
to be a Bruce, Bonaparte, Luther, Knox, Demosthenes, 
Shakspeare, Milton, or Cromwell, — a large brain is 
indispensably requisite • but to display skill, enterprise, 
and fidelity in the various professions of civil life, to cul- 
tivate with success the less arduous branches of philoso- 
phy, to excel in acuteness, taste, and felicity of expression, 
to acquire extensive erudition and refined manners, a 
brain of a moderate size is perhaps more suitable than 
one that is very large, for whenever the energy is intense 
it is rare that delicacy, refinement, and taste are present 
in an equal degree." 



THE NECK AND EARS. 



" Fair as the neck of Paphia's boy." — Moore. 
" There's music in all things if men had ears." — Byron. 

"The neck," says Solomon, "is as a tower of ivory." 
It gives support to the head — bears it up as a column 
does its capital. It should be slightly inclined forward. 
In men the larynx is disposed to project, and when it is 
very noticeable it is disfiguring. This is Adam's apple, 
and it should not be seen in any of his consort's daugh- 
ters. A man's neck is more or less flat behind; a 
woman's should be rounded. If well formed, a long 
neck maybe compatible with beauty; but one of medium 
length is most desirable. Artists reckon the neck as a 
quarter of a head in length and half a head in breadth 
at its widest part, which is at its posterior third. The 
average circumference of the neck of men is thirteen 
and a half inches, and of women twelve. As an inter- 
esting fact we may state that the thickness of the neck 
is, as a rule, the same as that of the leg at the calf, and 
half that of the waist. Woman's neck appears longer 
than it is on account of her shoulders drooping much 
more than they do in man. 

The expression of the head is determined to a great 
extent by the shape and length of the neck. If short and 

(7°) 



7i 

thick it adds seeming fullness and power to it; but if long 
and thin it detracts from its size and enfeebles its effect. 
If it curves forward it gives the person what is called, in 
common parlance, a down look and an air of diffidence; 
whereas, if it curves backward the person gains thereby 
a bold, haughty air. The shorter and thicker the neck 
the stronger the character and the greater the prospect 
of health and happiness, and, we may add, long life. 
Sudden deaths occur mostly in short-necked people. 

The ear is, perhaps, the most invaluable of our organs 
of special sense, and it is the avenue of much of our 
pleasures. Says Dr. Rush, in his essay already quoted 
from {On the Pleasures of the Senses, i8ii)\ — "We are 
besieged, as it were, with pleasure through the medium 
of this sense. Soon after we come into the world the 
sweet and tender voice of a mother insinuates pleasure 
into our ears. The human voice continues to afford us 
pleasure in every period of life, by means of conversa- 
tion and music. But it is not from the human voice, nor 
from vocal or instrumental music alone that we inhale 
pleasure by our ears. The feathered tribes, at certain 
seasons of the year, meet us in our morning and evening 
walks, and charm the sense of hearing with their tribu- 
tary notes. Nor is this all. Certain quadrupeds and 
insects, nay, even the winds, rain, and streams of water, 
all do homage to the ears of man." 

The delicate mechanism of hearing is within — the 
outer ear serving merely to collect the waves of sound. 
The latter, or the ear, as the term is commonly under- 
stood, should be situated between a horizontal line 
from the eye and one from the juncture of the nose 



72 

with the lip; and its breadth should be one-half its length. 
A point immediately in front of the ear should divide into 
two equal parts the antero-posterior diameter of the head. 

An ear of medium size, well cut and intricate, in its 
foldings, and not inclined to project a great deal, is 
the best and prettiest. A small, lobeless, projecting 
ear is apish, and when large and flat it is quite as ugly, 
but being an indication of a warm disposition, it has 
something to recommend it. What shall we do with an 
ugly ear? If possible, do not show it to anybody. It 
is often caused to project by turning it forward and rest- 
ing on it at night. By keeping it bandaged in the de- 
sired position nightly, it will soon retain it in most cases; 
but if it does not, recourse may be had to another expe- 
dient, and that is contracting the skin and scalp behind, 
which can be done by the skillful use of blisters. Its 
shape, in detail, may be modified in the same way. 

According to Mr. Darwin, man formerly had the fac- 
ulty of moving his ears; and that distinguished natural- 
ist says: — " I have seen one man who could draw his ears 
forward and another who could draw them backward, 
and from what one of these persons told me, it is pos- 
sible that most of us, by often touching our ears and thus 
directing the attention towards them, could, by repeated 
trials, recover some power of movement." The specu- 
lations of this gentleman have vested the little inward 
projection of the outer fold of the ear with great meaning* 
He thinks it is only a mere rudiment of what it was. 

The lobe of the ear was once regarded in a strange 
light. Pliny, in his Natural History, which was written 
about the middle of the first century of our era, says: — 
"The seat of memory lies in the lower lobe of the ear." 



73 

The curious custom of wearing ear-rings began — 
well, how early nobody knows. The Egyptians and 
Hebrews wore them, as did the Greek and Roman ladies. 
Some magnificent specimens of those worn by the latter 
were to be seen in the Centennial Exhibition, in the 
Castellani collection of antiquities. The ears of the 
statue Venus de' Medici are pierced, and probably at one 
time were ornamented with rings. In Oriental countries 
it is not unusual for men to wear ear-rings, but with us it 
is rarely done, save by sailors. The effect is not pleasing. 

In the choice of ear-rings there is plenty of room 
for taste and skill. It is not enough that an ear-ring 
is beautiful in itself, nor that it is suitable for the oc- 
casion; it is more important that it is such as will 
improve, or at least not mar, the wearer's appearance, 
particularly that of the ear. Let us here throw out a few 
hints on this last point. Ladies with large, ugly ears — 
for there are some — should choose ear-rings proportion- 
ate in size and of corresponding regularity or irregu- 
larity in the design. If the ear is long and thin the 
ring should be similar in shape; and if it is short and 
thick the ring should be of a like make. Diamonds or 
other stones which attract particular attention should be 
eschewed, if the ears will not bear examination. Indeed, 
on the principle that it is every lady's duty, as Dryden 
states it to be every painter's — 

" To hide from sight 
And cast in shade what seen would not delight," 

we think it is sometimes proper not to wear any of any 
sort. 



74 

Piercing the ears for rings is a simple and innocent 
operation. It may be done at any age, but we do not 
favor having it done in childhood, because ear-rings dis- 
figure a child by giving her something of the air of a 
dwarfed adult. The procedure is very easy. Having 
decided on the proper point, which should be determined 
from the size and shape of the ear, rub the lobe or apply 
cold — through ice or ether-spray — until it becomes 
numb, and then pass a medium-sized needle, armed with 
a silk thread, through it, letting the latter remain. A 
little irritation and perhaps some inflammation may 
result, but no serious consequences need be apprehended. 



THE FACE AS A WHOLE. 



" 'Tis not a lip or eye we beauty call, 

But the joint force and full result of all." — Pope. 

The face at its best is, as we have already stated, the 
most beautiful part of the person, and also the most in- 
teresting, being the chief seat of mental expression ; but 
aside from these considerations, the fact that it is almost 
the only part which it is customary to expose to general 
observation, is sufficient to make it the part of all others 
of most concern. However, it is through the face that 
we recognize people ; it is principally by it that we are 
attracted or repelled by them, and it is largely from a 
study of it that we can form an estimate of their charac- 
ters. In treating of it, then, we are fully imbued with 
its importance, and we will endeavor to do it justice. In 
this chapter we will merely make some remarks on it as 
a whole, reserving what we have to say about the 
features individually for a chapter on each which will 
follow. It may not be amiss to say that the features of 
both sexes will be treated conjointly. In the arrange- 
ment of their coiffure ladies have the advantage of the 
gentlemen, in being able to conceal badly-shaped heads ; 
but here the advantage is to the latter, for, by a skillful 
arrangement of their beard, they can considerably 
change the appearance of their face, and even conceal 

(75) 



7 6 

the greater portion of it, as did Hadrian, the ambitious 
but cruel Roman emperor, to hide his unsightly scars. 
For this and other reasons, our remarks in this and suc- 
ceeding chapters will be addressed especially to the 
female physiognomy, but they will in the main be 
equally applicable to that of the other sex. 

All faces may be roughly divided into two classes, 
according to their shade of color — the blonde or fair, and 
the brunette or dark. On comparing fair and dark people 
we notice that as a rule the former are physically less 
tenacious, but more rounded and of more delicate com- 
plexion, and mentally less firm, but more gentle and 
affectionate than the latter. Venus and her attendants, 
the three Graces (and the Madonna), are represented by 
artists as having been blondes. We may also state that 
angels and other heavenly beings are usually pictured 
as fair; whereas sa majeste diabolique and everything 
Mephistophelean are given of a dark hue. 

From their shape faces are divisible into the ovate, the 
round, the oblong, and the pyriform or pear-shaped. 
This division of faces into four classes partly corresponds 
with the division of temperaments into the sanguino- 
phlegmatic, the vital or nutritive, the bilious or muscular, 
and the mental or nervous. 

It must not be supposed that everybody must neces- 
sarily come under the head of one or other of these 
classes, for between them are no definite lines of de- 
markation. Persons of no particular temperament and 
with faces of no particular shape are generally well- 
balanced, both physically and mentally, and are the best 
off, perhaps. 



77 

Anticipating in a measure what we shall have occasion 
to speak of in the succeeding chapter, we may say that 
doubtless the shape of a great many faces is spoiled in 
infancy, by incidental pressure of one kind or another, 
the bony frame-work being incomplete and pliable. 
Merely letting the child lie habitually in one position 
may modify considerably the shape of the whole head, 
including the face. Again, the training in childhood 
may spoil the shape of the face by failing to regulate the 
relative proportions of the head. In children whose 
nervous systems are developed to a disproportionate ex- 
tent, as indicated by the fullness of the head when com- 
pared with the rest of the person, efforts should be made 
to bring about an equilibrium as soon as possible, be- 
cause it is easier the earlier done, and also because if the 
trouble is not counteracted it tends to become worse. 
Where the brain is inclined to be excessive in size it has 
been suggested that a small amount of pressure should 
be used, and we believe it can be done to advantage. It 
is criminal to let a child, with an open, spreading head 
be without some support. Mental activity of such 
children should not be early encouraged, but general 
physical development and growth should be favored in 
every way. Precocious intelligence, or rather smartness, 
is undesirable. Children whose nervous systems are not 
proportionately strong and active should be encouraged 
to exercise their minds as early as possible. In every 
instance the aim is to balance the whole system. 

In adults the apparent shape of many faces is spoiled by 
thinness, and of nearly as many by stoutness. In both 
conditions not only the shape but the size and general 



78 

aspect are objectionable. We have spoken elsewhere of 
the general remedies for each. The London Spectator 
recently said that "scragginess is more common in 
England among women than stoutness," — a statement 
which should silence those among us who, judging from 
the large percentage of lean people, are inclined to bewail 
the degeneracy of the Anglo-Saxon race on this side of 
the Atlantic. 

Now there is a connection between the shape of the 
face and the character which enables us in a large 
majority of cases to infer pretty correctly the latter. A 
person of ovate face is likely to be genial and fairly 
balanced in tendencies ; one of oblong face is likely to 
be independent and physically active; one of round face 
is likely to be good-natured and fond of the pleasures of 
life ; and one of pyriform face is likely to be unsteady, 
with intellectual proclivities. 

The profile or side view of the face should be especi- 
ally studied in attempting to form an opinion as to the 
intellectual capacity, for in that way we get the best idea 
of the relative proportions of the head and face, and we 
prevent ourselves from being misled by the expression. 
If a straight line be drawn from the middle of the fore- 
head to the point of juncture of the nose and lip, and it 
be met by another crossing from the opening of the ear, 
an angle will be formed to which the Dutch anatomist 
and art connoisseur, Camper, applied the name of the 
facial angle. In some of the Grecian statues it is as 
high as a hundred degrees, but the Romans rarely repre- 
sented it over ninety-five. In our race it is of an average 
of about eighty degrees. As a rule it is greatest in the 
most intellectual and refined people. 



79 

e will close with a few observations on the question 
e possibility of reading the nature of the mind from 
ppearance of the face. Those who have examined 
nastered the Works of Lavater, a man wonderfully 
1 as an observer, can scarcely doubt that it can be 
one in a sufficiently large percentage of cases to 
:itute it a legitimate science and art. Nobody claims 
as a science it is exact, any more than that geology 
lysiology are. " At the corner of the street," says 
cute observer and profound thinker, Emerson, " you 
the possibility of each passenger in the facial angle, 
e complexion, in the depth of the eye ;" and again, 
n take each other's measure when they meet for the 
time and as often as they meet." Why, this belief 
ilways prevailed. Over two thousand years ago 
>siasticus wrote, " A man may be known by his 
and one that hath understanding when thou meetest 
We can in many cases even tell the business or, 
ist, the line of business, if it has been followed for 
time, from the cut and expression of the features. 
: the blandness of the preacher's face, the boldness 
* lawyer's, and the thoughtfulness of the physician's, 
ever, to obtain a reasonable knowledge of the nature 
talents of any one a coup d'ceil is not enough even 
jh it takes in the whole person in all its details. A 
nged study, under varying conditions, is necessary. 



THE FOREHEAD. 



The radiant glories of the mind 

In the bright, smooth brow appear. 

The forehead or brow is the most noble feature of the 
face. There we contemplate the throne of reason, the 
power which Cicero beautifully characterizes as u the 
light and the eye of life." There we look for intellect — 
the subtle endowment which enables man to triumph 
over everything that exists and transform at will the 
appearance of creation. 

We will not attempt to give any classification of fore- 
heads farther than to say that they are high or low, 
round or square, and flat or convex. A smooth, rounded, 
slighty convex forehead, one-fourth the head in height, 
is the most beautiful ; but the higher, broader, and fuller 
it is, all other things being equal, the greater the capacity 
and strength of the mind. In some people the hair en- 
croaches on the forehead and in others the reverse, so 
these facts must be taken into consideration in making an 
estimate of the intellect. 

As we have just hinted, the forehead is the seat of the 
intellectual faculties, and the degree of development of 
particular parts of it indicates a corresponding strength 
of particular faculties. Prominence in the region of the 

(80) 



8i 

eyebrows indicates strength of the perceptive or observing 
faculties; prominence of the middle and upper part indi- 
cates strength of the reflective or thinking faculties; and 
prominence of the upper and outer portions indicates 
strength of the imaginative faculties. Persons in whom 
the forehead rises slantingly are sharp and daring ; those 
in whom it is fullest in the middle and upper regions are 
shrewd and guarded in their conduct, and those in whom 
it is fullest at the outer angles have plenty of ideas, but 
are prone to be erratic in their behavior. Of course, in 
a well-balanced mind there is a proportionate develop- 
ment of all the faculties, and such is on the whole the 
most consistent with beauty of character as well as beauty 
of the forehead. 

It must be remembered that the character of the 
intellect is modified by the temperament. Generally 
speaking, the minds of sanguino-phlegmatic people are 
moderately active ; those of the bilious are less so ; those 
of the vital still less so ; and those of the nervous are 
the most active. But the mind may be active without 
much strength, and strong without much activity. Many 
very loquacious persons are extremely shallow and weak- 
minded, and, on the other hand, many profound persons 
are very silent. Versatile people are rarely deep. In 
this connection we may quote the declaration of Dr. 
Rush : " The enlargement and activity of our intellects 
'are as much within our power as the health and move- 
ments of our bodies/' 

In infancy it is possible to mould the forehead into 
almost any shape that we may desire. This fact is well 
known to the Flathead Indians ; who are yet in the habit 



82 

of applying pressure to the foreheads of their children 
in order to obtain the desired slant. And not a great 
deal of pressure is required, as any one may readily 
verify for himself. In an infant a pressure of half an 
ounce, if allowed to continue, will soon cause a depres- 
sion. Bacon writes : — " This is certain and noted long 
since, that the pressure of forming parts of creatures when 
they are very young, doth alter the shape not a little, as 
the stroking of the heads of infants between the hands 
was noted of old to make macrocephali, w 7 hich shape of 
the head at that time was esteemed. And the raising 
gently of the bridge of the nose doth prevent the de- 
formity of a saddle-nose." He then suggests the feasi- 
bility of improving the appearance of people " by the 
forming and the shaping of them in infancy, as by 
stroking up the calves of the legs to keep them from 
falling down too low, and by stroking up the forehead 
to keep them from being low-foreheaded. And it is a 
common practice to swathe infants that they may grow 
more straight and better shaped, as we see young 
women, by wearing straight bodice, keep themselves 
from being gross and corpulent." 

An interesting and most important question is here 
suggested, and that is whether or not in modifying the 
shape of the skull we also modify the mind. Now from 
the fact that the brain, like every other part of the body, 
grows most in the line of least resistance, and least in 
the line of most resistance, and also on the principle 
that the size of the brain determines the amount of mind, 
we have not the slightest doubt that the question may 
be answered in the affirmative. We may go a step 



83 

farther and affirm that by modifying the size of particular 
parts of the skull we modify particular faculties of the 
mind. In those Flathead Indians, the reasoning and 
moral faculties are very defective, as the „ preceding 
principles would lead us to expect. We have no doubt 
that if the brain is prevented from rising in the middle 
and upper portion the person will be lacking in moral 
instinct, and unless the reason is strong or the circum- 
stances such as to keep him in the path of right, the 
record of his life will be unsavory. This matter merits 
the rfiost careful attention of every one, and of mothers 
especially. 

We have stated that the brain tends to develop most 
in the line of least resistance and vice versa. To this we 
would add that cultivating the mind, or, in other words, 
promoting functional activity of the brain, tends to 
increase the size of the latter, and this principle holds 
good in the case of any particular faculty, and the 
part of the brain in which it is located. These facts 
are so far beyond doubt that we deem it unnecessary to 
enter into any argument in support of them. 

Here, then, we have two methods of changing the 
shape of the brow, and both may and should be made 
use of, either separately or conjointly, for the purpose of 
beautifying the appearance and also the character. 



. THE EYEBROWS. 



" Sae flaxen were her ringlets, 
Her eyebrows of a darker hue 

Bewitchingly o'erarching 
Twa laughing een o' bonnie blue." 

Burns. 

There is no feature does more to better or spoil the 
tout ensemble of the face than the eyebrow ; and it is also 
very expressive of disposition. Let it be well marked, 
but proportionate in size and gracefully arched, and it is 
as the rainbow in the sky, — a beautiful as well as a beau- 
tifying thing, and a sign of hope; but let it be shaggy, 
unshapely, and hanging, and we can liken it to nothing 
but a jetty cliff, ugly, disfiguring, threatening. 

From their shape we may divide eyebrows into four 
classes, as follows : — The [straight, the upivardly-arched, 
the downwardly-arched, and the crescentic. When mark- 
edly typical the straight are ungraceful and accompany 
a gloomy masculine disposition ; the upwardly-arched 
are more striking than beautiful, and denote an active, 
egotistic disposition ; the downwardly-arched are more 
beautiful than expressive, and indicate a kind, thought- 
ful disposition ; and the crescentic are graceful, and be^ 
speak a cheerful, amiable disposition. 

1*4) 



85 

The most attractive eyebrows are the crescentic when 
they are merging into the upwardly-arched. Anacreon 
tells his taste through Moore : — 



s Let her eyebrows sweetly rise 
In jetty arches o'er her eyes s 
Gently in a crescent gliding, 
Just commingling, just dividing." 



Apart from the shape, the eyebrow may be thick or 
thin, fine or coarse, smooth or brushy, and fair or dark. 
Very much hair is but slightly less objectionable than 
very little. Either blemish can generally be remedied. 
When it is too profuse we can remove it directly, and 
when it is too scanty the measures recommended else- 
where for promoting the growth of the hair in general 
may be resorted to here with hopes of success. 

The color of the eyebrows should be of the same tint 
and almost, if not quite, as distinct as that of the hair of 
the head. This fact, and the other that there is a natural 
correspondence between the hue of the hair and that of 
the complexion and, to some extent, of the eyes, should 
be more generally known, for we frequently see evidence 
of ignorance of it in the faces of our friends. The de- 
fect in the color of the eyebrows in the great majority of 
cases is in the direction of lightness. 

An excellent stain for light eyebrows and also for 
the eyelashes is made by boiling walnut bark in water 
and then adding a little alum to set the color, or by 
merely steeping it for a few days in eau de cologne. 
This gives a rich brown. It should be applied with 



86 

a brush or sponge and repeated from day to day as 
may seem fit. 

Cosmetic pastilles, the essential ingredients of which 
are wax and olive oil, and when black charred cork, are 
used a good deal, not only for the eyebrows but also for 
the eyelashes and beard, but especially the moustache. 
Made of such materials, of course they are entirely 
innocent of any injurious effect on the hair and skin, 
and they promote the growth of the former. If skillfully 
used they may do much by way of improvement to the 
appearance. 

There should be more or less of an interspace between 
the eyebrows free from hair, and the larger the space the 
larger the mind, other things being equal. 

Much space and bagginess between the eyebrows and 
the eyes are ugly, and are generally met with in shallow 
persons of dissolute tastes. 

A moderately mobile eyebrow is the best, but if it is 
excessively mobile it does not portend a steady mind. 

The eyebrows are thrown up in amazement, fear, and 
adoration ; in thought and anger they are drawn down ; 
and in grief they are broken, the inner third being 
thrown up. The ancients properly thought the eye- 
brows especially expressive of earnestness and pride. 

Healthy, happy, refined people have the prettiest eye- 
brows, and those of the unhealthy, unhappy, and vulgar, 
are the opposite ; so whatever promotes the former tends 
to beautify and whatever favors the latter has the reverse 
effect. The life one leads does much to determine 
whether the eyebrows shall be attractive or not, and this 
is true of all the features of the face. It is in our power 



87 

to momentarily affect them. One of Shakspeare's char- 
acters says to another : — 

" Unknit that threatening, unkind brow, 
It blots thy beauty." 

And every one can and should follow the advice. 
Those whose eyebrows are inclined to run up towards 
the back of the head should give up habits and restrain 
emotions which increase this inclination and cultivate 
those which have a contrary effect. The use of the in- 
tellectual faculties tends to bring them down. 



THE EYES. 



" As the bright sun glorifies the sky, 
So is her face illumined with her eye." — Shakspeare. 

The eye at its best is the most beautiful feature of the 
face and, perhaps, the most beautiful object in nature. 
Indeed, its beauty as a whole and the marvelous intri- 
cacy of its parts, which so admirably subserve its benefi- 
cent purpose, entitle it to be regarded as one of the 
greatest wonders of creation. 

It would be useless for our purpose to give minute 
details of the anatomy and physiology of this organ — 
the window of the soul. Suffice it to say that it is 
composed of many separate parts and balanced in posi- 
tion in the bony socket by half a dozen little muscles ; 
that the only parts visible are the clear convex disc in 
front (the corned), diverging from which runs a mem- 
brane (the conjunctiva) " the white of the eye," and the 
black circular spot (the pupil), " the apple of the eye," 
which varies momentarily in size, and around which is a 
band or radiating muscular curtain (the iris) which 
dilates and contracts and in which is deposited pigmen- 
tary matter upon which "the color" of the eye depends. 
To these we may add the eyelid and lash. 

The eye should be of a size proportionate with the 

.(88) 



8 9 

rest of the face, and sunk relatively to the forehead, but 
not in reference to the cheek. Sculptors very well under- 
stand the artistic effect of placing the eye so that it rests 
within the shadow of the brow ; and it is no less desir- 
able that it should be so as indicating development of the 
anterior lobes of the brain. When the eye is sunk rela- 
tively to the cheek the expression is mean. Eyes 
which are prominent relatively to both cheek and brow, 
and which are known as " saucer eyes," are not only 
ugly but tell of weakness generally. We are sorry to 
say there are far too many such. 

Artists regard the following as the ideal proportions 
of the eye : — The width should be one-fifth the breadth 
of the head; the cornea should be one-third the w r idth 
of the eye; and the width of the lids apart should be 
equal to the diameter of the cornea. 

A rather wide opening is admired by many, but often 
when it is so the lids are inclined to open too freely and 
allow a white circle to be visible around the cornea, 
the appearance of which is very ugly. When, however, 
the opening is wide and the lids are not inclined to open 
too freely but the contrary, the languishing appearance 
is very ensnaring. We may note en passant that if this 
form of eye is affected by any one it constitutes " the 
sheep's eye." 

Large eyes are more powerful than beautiful — they 
are too dazzling. They are the kind wc fancy as appro- 
priate in persons of command. Thus Homer delights to 
speak of Juno as having " large, majestic eyes," as being 
H ox-eyed." A taste for large, dark eyes is very general 
in the east, and it is there that the most magnificent 



9 o 

specimens are to be seen. The Arabs compare women's 
beauty when they would emphatically emphasize it, 
to the eye of the gazelle, which is certainly very 
attractive. Byron, speaking of one of his oriental 
damsels, says : — 

" Her eye's dark charm ' twere vain to tell, 
But gaze on that of the gazelle, 
It will assist thy fancy well." 

Eyes differ greatly in color, the beauty of which may 
as a rule be graded by its purity. Black and blue are 
the principal colors ; the others— brown and gray — are 
mixtures — black being the main element in the former, 
and blue in the latter. The blood circulating in the 
iris modifies all these colors in every case. When the 
structure of the iris is so delicate as to allow the red 
tint to be very distinctly felt, we have hazel eyes, such 
as had Shakspeare. 

The majority of the Teutons are blue-eyed, and black 
is the prevailing color in people of the Latin races. A 
still higher generalization is, that wherever the climate 
is warm the natives are black-eyed, and wherever it is 
cold they are blue-eyed. The Greeks admired blue eyes, 
and fondly called Minerva " the blue-eyed maid," and 
Neptune " the god of the azure eyes." The eyes of 
Venus were blue. 

The distinctness of the color of the eye is highest 
when in health and good spirits ; and the same may be 
said of its brightness. The left eye, it is said, is naturally 
a little brighter than the right. The direct application of 
the desired color to the iris has never been practiced. 



9i 

It is possible to do so, we believe, but it would be 
somewhat dangerous. 

The size of the pupil changes wonderfully the apparent 
hue of the entire eye, making it dark and brilliant in 
proportion to its size. Getting into a joyous frame of 
mind enlarges it, and we can readily produce the same 
effect for a while by placing in the eye a few drops (one 
to five) of a solution of atropia (sulphate of atropia one 
grain, water one ounce). Dullness or the use of opium 
in any form will have an opposite effect. 

Long lashes also add greatly to the apparent darkness 
and lustre of the eyes, and the shadows cast beneath 
the lower ones are very attractive, so much so that 
they are often imitated with the brush. The simplest 
way of increasing their growth and strength is to trim 
them repeatedly. We are not disposed to recommend 
washes here. The one given elsewhere for promoting 
the growth of the hair of the head is as good as any 
other, but care must be exercised not to let any of it 
pass into the eye, for it will irritate. 

In the east it is customary to color the lashes, and the 
practice is not unknown among us. The lines of Lalla 
Rookh come to mind : — 

" Others mix the Kohol's jetty dye 
To give that long, dark languish to the eye." 

But we have treated of this matter in the preceding 
chapter. 

A bold contrast between the color of the eye and 
that of the eyebrow is scarcely compatible with beauty, 



92 

as when the former is light blue and the latter black, 
or when the former is black and the latter very light. 
Cato's brows were red and his eyes light blue; but 
although he was ugly he was very wise. It is stated 
by good authority that a large majority of insane people 
have light eyes and dark hair. 

In regard to character it may be said that the black- 
eyed are brilliant and impulsive; the blue-eyed mild and 
considerate ; the gray-eyed shrewd and passionate ; and 
the brown-eyed affectionate and faithful. The black eye 
wins by show, the blue by kindness, the gray by talent, 
and the brown by love. 

In astonishment and fear the eyes are thrown open ; 
in shame and penitence they are cast down ; and in 
deep thought and adoration they are thrown up. When 
the under lid rises up towards the pupil it is a marked 
sign of an amorous nature, or at least a temporary feeling 
of that kind. A rolling, unsteady eye is an index of a 
general but suspicious character. It may be instanced 
in Sir Walter Scott's Cormac Doil, who 

" Circumspectly took 
A circling, never-ceasing glance, 
By doubt and cunning marked at once." 

A motionless, stern eye, on the other hand, is not in- 
dicative of an amiable character, and it is less attractive, 
perhaps, than what we may term the dancing eye. Burke 
discriminatingly remarks : — " The motion of the eye con- 
tributes to its beauty by continually shifting its direction, 
but a slow, languid motion is more beautiful than a brisk 
one ; the latter is enlivening, the former lovely." 



93 

Addison states that "the intelligence of the affection" 
is carried on by the eye only, and continues, " Had you 
ever been in love you would have said ten thousand 
things which it seems did not occur to you. Do but 
reflect upon the nonsense it makes men talk, the flames 
which it is said to kindle, the transport it raises, the 
dejection it causes in the bravest men ; and if you do 
believe those things are expressive to her extravagance, 
yet you will own that the influence of it is very great 
which moves men to that extravagance. Certain it is 
that the whole strength of the mind is sometimes seated 
there, that a kind look imparts all that a year's discourse 
would give you, in a minute." 

A few words now on some affections of the eye. If 
the eyes are weak and habitually red, there is something 
wrong with the system. An opening tonic, such as the 
one recommended under the head of Complexion, will 
generally be in order ; and they should be bathed 
morning and evening, or oftener, with warm water. 
Cold water alone, or with a little common salt, or alum 
dissolved in it, will sometimes do quite as well, and a 
decoction of tea has its advocates. If the trouble is 
great the following is an excellent wash and it may be 
used three times, or oftener, daily : — 

Wine of opium, .... Half an ounce. 
Solution of acetate of ammonia, . . One and a half ounces. 

Rose water, Two ounces. 

The near-sightedness of very stout people is cured 
by reducing treatment, and far-sightedness arising froij) 



94 ' 

thinness should be treated in an opposite fashion. De- 
bility and deranged conditions of the system frequently 
cause these affections. Great efforts should be made to 
remove the cause rather then to resort to the disfigura- 
tion of glasses. Wearing glasses under the circum- 
stances tends to make matters worse, especially in very 
young persons, because it favors the morbid proclivity 
of vision. A lens, either concave or convex, changes the 
natural focus of sight, and the entire structure of the eye 
must accommodate itself to it; which makes it sufficiently 
evident that glasses cannot be worn with impunity. 

It is lamentably surprising how many are affected 
with these two affections. A recent examination of 
school children shows that thirty-five per cent of them 
have defective vision, and of these about twenty-five 
per cent, are far-sighted and nearly twelve are near- 
sighted. There are five girls to every four boys affected. 
Some attribute a great deal of this disorder of vision 
to defects in the lighting, heating, and furniture of 
the schools, which may be to some extent true; but 
we believe that the real cause is neglect of proper 
attention to physical development and bad constitutions 
to begin with. It is right to have the school-rooms as 
hygienic in every respect as possible, but at the same 
time direct efforts should be made to make the children 
healthy and strong. A properly-equipped gymnasium 
should be attached to every school, and the length of time 
spent in it daily as well as the character of the exercises 
practiced should depend on the physical condition of 
each child. 

As to glasses, should it be deemed well to use them, 



95 

those of but slight power should be started with. The 
way to test whether a lens is good or not is to hold it 
obliquely over print; if it is true, the letters are in no 
manner distorted. Glass lenses are just as good as 
pebble ones, but the latter being harder are not scratched 
or broken so readily and do not become dimmed with 
moisture. 

It is often desirable to use glasses simply for the 
purpose of modifying the character of the light and 
conseqently change its effect on the retina. For sensi- 
tive eyes, green-tinted glasses are the best ; but if the 
eyes are not very sensitive but weak, violet ones are 
preferable, as this hue cuts off nearly all but the chemical 
rays, which are very promotive of physiological activity. 
If there is no malformation of the eye we believe far 
more advantage, by way of cure, can be derived in the 
end, whether in young or old, from using suitable tints 
than magnifying power in the lens. 

There is a disease of the eye called achromotopia, a 
condition of inability to distinguish colors, which it is 
well to know something about. It is not at all rare, and 
in engineers and others it may be the cause of terrible 
disasters. Dugald Stewart, the distinguished Scotch 
metaphysician, saw only the yellow and blue colors of 
the spectrum, and Dalton, the English chemist, only 
these and red slightly. It is well known that the great 
painter Turner changed his style of coloring after he 
became celebrated, and critics never could tell why 
until recently, when Liebrich, the noted ophthalmologist, 
proved that it arose from this disorder of his vision, the 
existence of which he was unconscious of, but which led 



9 6 

him to mistake one shade of color for another. From 
the absence of taste displayed in the arrangement of 
colors in their costume, a noted American author de- 
clares it as his deliberate belief that most of the English 
people (the better half of them he was writing about) 
must be color-blind. 



THE NOSE. 



As a column the nose bears up the brow 
And forms the face. 



It is the nose which most of all the features gives 
character to the face. There it stands immovable, un- 
changing, and almost entirely beyond the control of 
the owner, a pillar of strength and beauty or anything 
even to a mere unsightly projection. The eye may de- 
ceive by assuming foreign beams and the lips by affecting 
unwonted smiles, but the nose is no hypocrite ; it rests 
in relief, open and truthful. " A nose," says Lavater, 
"physiologically good is of unspeakable weight in the 
balance of physiognomy." 

Now as to the nose the items for consideration are 
relative size, shape, and complexion. According to the 
rule of Zeising the length of the nose should be to the 
combined length of itself and that of the forehead as the 
length of the latter is to the former. We reckon from the 
line of the eyebrows to the tip of the organ. It is gen- 
erally held by artists, that from the root to its point of 
juncture with the lips the nose should be equal in length 
to one-third the whole length of the face. This is about 
the average length ; but it varies within wide limits, and 
as a rule the greater the length the greater the mind. 

(97) 



9 3 

Again, the breadth at the root from eye to eye should be 
equal to one-fifth the breadth of the face, and it should 
be of equal breadth at the other end. Great relative 
breadth is a sign of great mental capacity and vice versa, 
unless modified by the length. If it is broad and short 
the propensities are strong and the intellect weak. The 
length of the nostril should be equal to one-half the 
breadth of the nose. 

As regards shape, noses are divisible into the Grecian, 
the Roman, the Jeivish, the snub or pug, and the celestial 
or le nez retrousse. The Grecian is high at the root and 
straight, rising but slightly; the Roman is hollow at the 
root, from which it gradually rises until within a third 
of the tip, when it inclines downward; the Jewish is flat 
at the root and rises in a curve to its middle, when it 
gradually bends to the tip; the snub is low at the root 
and rises in nearly a straight line to the tip, which is 
rounded ; and the celestial is flat at the root and rises 
in a gentle bend to the tip. The first and second are 
generally of medium length, the third and fifth long, 
and the fourth short. The Grecian nose is artistic, the 
Roman strong, the Jewish striking, the snub interesting, 
and the celestial insinuating. The first bespeaks taste, 
the second power, the third shrewdness, the fourth 
versatility, and the fifth sweetness. When the nose 
projects outward and far it is said to be inquisitive ; 
when it has a great downward development it is said to 
be melancholy, and these two united form what is known 
as the bottle nose. 

The ancients esteemed the nose as especially expressive 
of scorn and ridicule. Napoleon had great faith in long 



99 

noses. " In my observation of men/' says the general, 
" I have almost invariably found a long nose and a long 
head together." 

Whatever the nose may be like, it is largely an 
inheritance, but subject to considerable modification. In 
children and to some extent in all it can be readily 
changed in outline by the skillful use of traction and 
pressure. The bones of the nose do not extend more 
than half its length, the frame-work of the remainder 
consists of cartilage, which is very pliable. Now if the 
organ is retained for a length of time in the desired form 
it will afterwards remain in it. Some people jest at the 
idea of a nose-machine, but we see no reason why there 
should not be one or why it might not prove useful. 
Two little splints arranged in the form of a saddle and 
bound on the nose nightly soon transform acceptably 
those tip-tilted affairs which mar so many faces. 

The complexion of the nose should be like that of the 
face in general and of the same hue throughout. A life 
of depravity of any kind soon becomes visible in this 
organ. Every one has noticed its swollen, ruby condition 
in the drunkard. He has not long entered upon his dis- 
solute career when friendly Nature lights it up as a 
beacon to warn him from destruction. They are fools 
who disregard the signal. On its appearance a man 
should summon up all his courage and get free of 
danger. The inebriating cup is a slow poison, and a 
person who dies untimely from its use is virtually a 
suicide. Now although nasal ruddiness is generally the 
result of some vicious habit, it must in justice be said 
that a great many afflicted with it are by no means 



100 

dissipated. It may be hereditary or it may be caused 
by some reducing disease or even by simple debility. 
Enlargement and redness can both be removed by the 
application of resolvents, such as the muriate of ammo- 
nia, and of astringents, such as alum or tannic acid. 
When either or both conditions are present we advise the 
following mixture : — 

Muriate of ammonia, ..... One drachm. 

Tannic acid, Half a drachm. 

Glycerine, ....... Two ounces. 

Rose water, Three ounces. 

Saturate a piece of cotton with it and bind it on the nose 
nightly until a cure results. In order that this or any 
other prescription shall prove effectual, of course it is 
necessary to discontinue or at least abate the cause ; if 
it is a bad habit it should be relinquished, and if it is 
some derangement it should be remedied. When the 
system of the drunkard is so affected that by an effort of 
his will he cannot resist the temptation, he is a proper 
subject for medical treatment. If his case is not of long 
standing there is little difficulty experienced in curing 
him. The liquor mubt be discontinued and substituted 
by a stimulating tonic medicine. There is nothing 
better than the following : — 

Sulphate of iron, ...... One drachm. 

Tincture of nux vomica, .... One ounce. 

Mint water, . . . . . . . Four ounces. 

The dose is one teaspoonful,and it should be taken four 
or five times for two or three days, and then three times 
a day for a couple of weeks or so. 



THE CHEEKS. 



" Thou hast given me, in this beauteous face, 
A world of earthly blessings to my soul, 
If sympathy of love unite our thoughts." — Shakspeare. 

The favorite seat of beauty's form and sheen is the 
cheek. No other part of the face admits of more grace 
of mould, and none of such charm of hues — hues whose 
varying depth speak sweetly the feelings of the spirit 
within. Not as often as we might do we meet with 
cheeks that have reached the limit of possible perfection 
and loveliness ; the majority are sadly defective. Even 
before youth has ebbed away the cheek which ought to 
be rounded and " decked with rosy gifts" — to use the 
words of Anacreon Moore — we often find hollow and 
sallow. Where shall we look for the cause of this 
lamentable falling off? Ask what has sapped the 
strength — the life — for therein lies the cause. It maybe 
some vice, the cruel inheritance of " the iniquity of the 
fathers/' some lurking disease or some grievance of the 
mind or heart. Health and contentment are wanting ; 
these must be courted and won before the cheek can fill 
and glow with tints of white and red. 

A rounded cheek, if not full withal, is the prettiest. 
When hollow it spoils the appearance of the whole 

(IOI) 



102 

face — the cheek-bones especially coming into disagree- 
able prominence. These are naturally prominent in 
some persons, and it betokens a capacious mind and a 
decided character. It has been observed that these 
bones towards the ears are particularly large in dis- 
tinguished medical men, for which reason they are often 
described as the physician's or surgeon's bones. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that there is never any 
bloom in a hollow cheek. This should be evident to 
every one. If we see clear white and red in such a cheek 
we need not hesitate to declare the colors artificial. 
Should any attempt be made to color here it should be 
with a hand that stints the paint. The proper tints of 
red and white come, as a rule, of themselves, if the form 
is what it should be. The exceptions are generally 
found in persons of phlegmatic temperament, or in those 
who stay a great deal within doors. In these cases a skill- 
ful pencil will improve the appearance, but not so much 
as a proper amount of sunshine and exercise. Here and 
in those in whom the pallor is due to some derangement 
of the system which has thinned the blood, a few doses 
of some invigorating medicine will be advantageous. 
The critic Winckelmann writes, "A little rouge is to a 
melancholy style of beauty what a smile is to the lips 
of a suffering mother who wishes to hide her trouble 
from her children, or to conceal it from the eyes of 
stupid indifference." 

There is a wonderful amount of difference in the com- 
plexion of cheeks. Each has tints of its own, and it is 
this that makes it so hard to use paint so as to improve 
and yet not be indicative of the brush. Indeed, this 



103 

natural difference of hues in the complexion is not 
usually taken into consideration in the preparation of 
the colors, nor can it very well be. 

Different tints of colors should be used in each case, 
and these should be as close as possible imitations of 
the person's complexion, but not necessarily at its best 
It is often well to be content to improve a little. 

The materials generally used as cosmetics are lily- 
white or pearl-powder (either nitrate of bismuth or fine 
chalk), which receives all sorts of fancy names, and rouge, 
which is nothing more than carmine. Rose shades of 
all degrees of depth are obtained by mixing these 
articles. Instead of the whites mentioned, cascarilla 
powder is used, and those who never paint — you know — 
use ordinary starch or flour. Cascarilla powder and 
rice powder are both excellent. The real French rouge 
is obtainable from a plant, the safflower (carthamus tincto- 
rius), and as it sells at a very high figure it is not used 
very extensively. 

Now, it cannot be said that any of these substances 
are poisonous or injurious in their influence ; the only 
possible harm that they can do would arise from filling 
the pores of the skin, but the space is so limited that it 
can have no effect of any consequence on the system. 
The argument that they cause diseases of the skin is 
without foundation ; if it were true we might expect to 
see strange looking faces come out of mills and factories 
where the air is thick with dust and the skin is con- 
stantly covered with a film of it. To be sure, much 
strongly alkaline powder lying on the skin will destroy 
qi great, deal of its oil and otherwise injure it; but we do 



104 

not advocate the use of strongly alkaline powders nor 
much of any kind. 

Painting the face and other exposed parts of the person 
is practiced as an art in some of the great centres of 
gaiety, and particularly in Paris, where may be found 
artists who will undertake to do wonderful things, even 
to restore at their touch, to the most haggard, a com- 
plexion like " immortal Hebe's, fresh with bloom divine," 
as Homer would say. Some of the public cosmetic 
salons are very elegant places, and are well patronized. 

To give an idea of how elaborate and refined the cos- 
metic art really is, we will give an extract or two from a 
pamphlet issued by a Parisian exhibitor at the Centennial 
Exhibition. It is said therein, " Besides being arranged 
according to their consistency, color, and shade, our 
fards (paints) are classed according to the purpose in- 
tended and the effect of light in the following manner : — 
White and rose fards with every shade for the com- 
plexion; fards for indoors; fards for out-of-doors; fards 
for daylight ; fards for gaslight ; fards for court and 
ball ; fards for the eyes ; fards for the lips ; reaseau (Tazur 
to mark the veins ; hair-dyes and hair-powders ; nail- 
powders ; appliances for the application of fards ; sanitary 
compositions to remove fards and to maintain health and 
freshness of the skin." Speaking of the art it is said, 
" the perfection of the artifice is to imitate nature. You 
should be at the same time artist and model and idealize 
your own beauty in concealing the faults, in making ap- 
parent the perfections, in establishing harmony, and 
creating from time to time bold and piquant contrasts 
without any exaggeration or false tone which may betray 



105 

the artifice." On application this gentleman gets up for 
those who desire to paint themselves what is called a 
boite de jouvence, or box of everything required for 
beautifying the person. In the Castellani collection of 
antiquities already referred to, were to be seen a number 
of similar caskets used by the Roman ladies. These, 
however, contained personal ornaments besides cos- 
metics, and the casket and contents formed what was 
known as the mitndus rnulieris, or woman's world, and it 
was protected by the goddess Venus, who made it a 
sealed secret even to the husband. 



THE CHIN. 



" Beneath her velvet chin, 
Whose dimple shades a love within, 
A charm may peep, a hue may beam." — Moore. 

We will preface our notes on the chin with a few words 
on the whole jaw. Apart from the shape of the chin, the 
jaw may be angular or rounded, and its breadth, depth, 
and prominence differ greatly in different persons. An 
angular or square jaw is incompatible with beauty of 
outline and grace, and it indicates a strong, rugged, 
amorous nature. In a beautiful face a line from the lobe 
of the ear to the chin is a graceful curve. Great breadth 
of jaw may be met with in attractive faces of the round 
type. A very deep jaw is ugly, and it is generally 
noticeable in obstinate people. 

Prominence of the jaw lessens with the advancement 
of the race, the region of the forehead becoming pro- 
portionately enlarged; but when it runs to an extreme 
in the other direction it is weak and ugly. A person 
with a receding jaw is rarely independent and strong 
intellectually. 

The chin may be pointed, round, square, or indented, 
and the extremes of any of these is unattractive. All of 
them may be found in handsome faces; but the rounded 

(106) 



107 

is the most beautiful. The indented form of chin is often- 
est seen in men, and a slightly square form in women. 
Dignity is principally indicated by the set of the chin, 
and physiognomists place much faith in it as an index of 
the affections. It may be said that the pointed chin is 
variable, the rounded temperate, the square ardent, and 
the indented selfish. The first is intense, the second 
mild, the third strong, and the fourth cold. Great 
anterior development of the chin is a sign of a warm 
disposition, and great depth is a sign of waywardness. 
Love in a lady is shown by an inclination of the chin 
forward and to the right, and in a gentleman by an incli- 
nation inward and to the right. 

We may here give a statement of the proper relative 
proportions of the head and face, and we cannot do bet- 
ter than give a few of the measurements in the case of 
the larger of the Laocoon youths, where they are unex- 
ceptionable. Reckoning according to the method of 
Audran, the distance from the highest point of the back 
portion of the head to the chin is four parts five minutes; 
from the bump at the base of the skull behind to a point 
between the eyebrows is three parts five minutes; and 
from the lobe of the ear to the chin is one part eleven 
minutes. As we have elsewhere stated, a point immedi- 
ately in front of the external opening of the ear should 
divide the antero-posterior diameter of the head into 
two equal parts. 

A long, heavy, projecting face mars the effect of the 
head by dwarfing its apparent size, and by overshadowing 
the features of intellectual expression it gives a person 
an unrefined appearance. 



THE LIPS. 



" Mark when she smiles with amiable cheer, 

And tell me whereto can you liken it?" — Spenser. 

The lips being subject to great variation in form, hue, 
and movement, are interesting subjects for study. Char- 
acter, which is the complexion of the entire qualities of 
heart and mind, taken as a unity, is apt to be more ap- 
parent in them than anywhere else. Says Dr. Holmes : — 
"There is one feature (the mouth), and especially one 
part of that feature, which, more than any other facial 
sign, reveals the nature of the individual, and that por- 
tion of it referred to is the corner." 

Recognizing lips as thick or thin, we may say that the 
extreme of either is ugly. The most beautiful and ex- 
pressive lips are of medium fullness, the lower one being 
slightly the fuller. The line of division between the 
delicate membrane of the lip and the skin should be 
well defined. In the upper lip none of this membrane 
should show at the corners, and most of it should be 
seen a little distance from the centre, which should be 
the lowest point; and in the lower lip, also, none of the 
lining membrane should appear at the corners, but most 
should be visible at the centre, which should be the 
lowest point. The lips should meet closely, and the line 

(108) 



109 

of union should be a graceful curve, the extremities being 
highest. Lips which fail to meet, and thus show the 
teeth, are ugly. They are mostly thick, and their pos- 
sessor is apt to have sensual tastes and an unmanly 
character. 

The proper width of the mouth is generally set down 
at one and a half times the width of the eye; but the 
average is quite that much, we believe. What a pity 
it is that in persons who become thin there is not a 
corresponding diminution in the size of the mouth! 
Unfortunately, the leaner people get the larger, rela- 
tively, does it become to its surroundings. The only 
remedy for a large mouth is found in the enlargement of 
the other features, particularly the cheeks, which can be 
brought about by measures already dwelt upon. 

A wide mouth implies an open nature, acute feelings, 
and an active mind; and a small mouth points to opposite 
traits. 

The upper lip should have a well-marked surface de- 
pression at its middle, and it should be equal in length to 
about one-third the distance from the nose to the chin. 
It is said that a long upper lip bespeaks great business 
capacity, and according to another item of folk-lore, it 
points to long life. These surmises are not without 
foundation, for it is often the case that a person with a 
long upper lip is active and possessed of a good stock of 
vitality. It will be remembered that in Venus the length 
of the upper lip is just two-thirds that of the under one. 

When the lips are full the disposition is warm, and 
when thin it is cold. Thin-lipped people are decided in 
character, and the full-lipped are comparatively pliable. 



no 

When the lips are well set and thoroughly under con- 
trol, the probabilities are that the person's mind is disci- 
plined and strong. Tremulous lips accompany a nature 
of acute sensibilities. 

Projection of the lower lip, with the lower teeth over- 
lapping the upper ones, is indicative of a weak character. 
Properly, the lower front teeth rest, when the mouth is 
shut, behind the upper ones, and in some persons are 
completely covered; but under such circumstances the 
lower jaw is apt to be of the receding type. 

Badly-arranged teeth often spoil what would otherwise 
have been pretty lips, and many sets of artificial ones 
have a similar effect. Blame here must be thrown on 
the parents and the dentists, — they have failed to com- 
pletely perform their duties. This subject will be ad- 
verted to in another place. 

If the corners of the mouth are inclined downward 
the person is of a stern, gloomy, and unkind nature; but 
if they are of an upward turn, the reverse. A cheerful, 
amiable disposition lifts the features up as it were, and a 
sullen, unsympathetic disposition drags them down. A 
ridge running from the lower lip towards the angle of the 
jaw on either side is seen in egotistic, jealous people. 
Pouting of the lips express contempt, and in the expres- 
sion of disgust the lower lip is turned down. 

St. Pierre writes : — " The mouth consists of two lips, 
the upper moulded into the shape of a heart, that form 
so lovely as to have become proverbial for its beauty ; and 
the under rounded into a demi-cylindrical segment. In 
the opening between the lips we have a glimpse of the 
quadrilateral figure of the teeth, whose perpendicular 



Ill 

and parallel lines contrast most agreeably with the round 
forms adjoining, arid so much the more so as we have 
seen that the first generative term being brought into 
union with the supremely harmonious term — that is, the 
straight line with the spherical form — the most harmonic 
of all contrasts result from it." 

We will now turn to the subject of color of the lips. 
In healthy people their color should be a decided pink ; 
if of a light tint it indicates a weak constitution, and if 
actually pale, it is a sign of disease, or at least some dis- 
turbance of the body or mind. 

In striving to improve the appearance of the lips it 
should be kept in mind that health and serenity of mind 
are the best cosmetics ; creams and salves and carnations 
can never have a like beneficial effect. The irritating 
properties of various substances are taken advantage of 
by many to make the lips of a ruby hue. Pepper is the 
favorite article, and it is the active ingredient in most of 
the lozenges and other preparations gotten up for the 
purpose. When a coloring agent is desired, the best is 
made by adding more wax to cold cream and then color- 
ing it to a suitable depth with carmine. 

Fissuring or chapping of the lips is generally caused 
by cold. Glycerine or cold cream or stramonium oint- 
ment should be applied, and if there is swelling and it 
may be a few little blisters, a mild aperent, such as 
magnesia, should be used in connection with the local 
application. Discoloration and peeling of the membrane 
of the lips are caused by some trouble in the system — 
very often by indigestion. The pill spoken of in the 
chapter on the Complexion will do excellent service 
here. 



112 

Times ago people went through life with harelips; now 
they rightly demand their cure, which can be obtained in 
nearly every case, particularly if taken early. The 
operation is simple: the edges of the opening are fresh- 
ened, and being held together for a week or so they 
adhere permanently. 

A few words now about the delicate custom of 
mutually touching the lips as a mark of friendship and 
love. It was prompted by their high sensibility and the 
pleasurable sensation which results from contact. How- 
ever, history tells us the following nice little story about 
the origin of the custom, one which contains a hint that 
some ladies might do well to accept: — After the capture 
of Troy by the Grecians, a party of the inhabitants under 
the lead of ^Eneas escaped, and " after much tossing, 
both on land and sea, by the power of the gods above, on 
account of the lasting ire of cruel Juno," as Virgil tells 
us, landed on the banks of the Tiber. Here they were 
not inclined to remain, but sick of an unsettled mode of 
life, it said that Roma, in order to compel their remaining, 
plotted with the rest of the ladies and burned the fleet 
which was lying at anchor. At first the men were greatly 
exasperated, but settling and prospering on the Palatine 
hill the wayward Roma's name was given to the Eternal 
City. " Hence, too, " says Plutarch, " we are informed the 
custom arose for the women to salute their relatives and 
husbands with a kiss, because those women when they 
had burned the ships used such kind of endearments to 
appease their husbands' resentment." 

Kissing is not practiced by the Chinese, and it is in- 
dulged in quite as much by our own as by any other 



H3 

people. Noble Britons esteem it vulgar, and the readers 
of George Eliot will remember that Grandcourt did not 
kiss Gwendolen's lips until after she had become his 
bride and had entered the halls of her new home. Now, 
without insisting on such abstinence as this, we will say 
that kissing as a customary form of every-day salutation 
should be discontinued. It is far too. familiar and fond, 
far "too flattering sweet to be substantial." . It is sense- 
less and sickly in the extreme. People can be warm 
enough in their ordinary greetings without going to the 
extent of an embrace. A kiss maybe the medium of 
communication of various disfiguring and fatal diseases. 



THE TEETH. 



" She doth display 
The gate with pearls and rubies richly dight, 
Through which her words so wise do make their way." — Spenser. 

A beautiful set of teeth is an essential element of a 
beautiful face, for however expert a person may be in 
controlling and shaping the lips, it is impossible to con- 
ceal them ; they will show themselves in spite of all that 
can be done to the contrary. The charm of many a face 
is gone the moment the mouth is opened. No one can 
view complacently a mouthful of ill-formed or decayed 
teeth. Nor is it the appearance alone of the ugly teeth 
that disfigures ; the vain efforts to hide them, which so 
many are inclined to make, are just as bad if not worse. 
There can be nothing more disagreeable to witness than 
these futile attempts at concealment. 

We need not enter into a description of what consti- 
tutes beautiful teeth, farther than to remark that they 
should be white and partially pellucid, and be arranged 
evenly in an unbroken arch in either jaw. 

Each tooth consists of two parts : the crown, and the 
root or fang. 

On splitting a tooth in the line of its length it is seen 
to be made up of a pulpy mass in the centre, in which 
the nerves and blood-vessels are imbedded ; a thick 

(114) 



us 

layer of ivory-like material (dentine) ; a crown-capping 
of enamel, the hardest of all organic products ; and a 
fang investment of bone-like substance (cement). If a 
portion of the enamel is removed decay of the rest of 
the tooth speedily ensues. 

The teeth begin to appear in the seventh month or 
earlier, and by the end of the second year the whole 
milk or temporary set, twenty in number, have appeared. 
They consist of two incisors, one canine, and two molars 
on either side of each jaw. When they appear very 
early it is not a sign of vigor, but the reverse. They 
should not decay, as is generally the case, but gradually 
fall out from the seventh to the fourteenth year, to give 
place to the permanent set, which when completed with 
the four wisdom ones, which do not appear until towards 
the twenty-first year, are thirty-two in number, sixteen 
in each jaw, or eight on either side of each jaw, as fol- 
lows : — Two incisors, one canine, two premolars, and 
three molars. The root of each of the first two upper 
molars has three branches; of each of the first two lower 
molars two; and of each of the others one; though 
there is a disposition on the part of that of each of the 
premolars to divide into two, and that of each of the 
upper wisdom ones to divide into three, and of the 
lower ones into two. 

It is stated by Pliny that "women have fewer teeth 
than men," and the great naturalist, Cuvier, in com- 
menting on this statement, acknowledges that it is 
sometimes true, and gives an explanation. Without 
intending a fling at the sex, he says, " The wisdom 
teeth are more frequently absent in women than in men." 



u6 

As a matter of interest, we may mention that we have 
seen several instances in which the teeth were double 
all the way around. 

In that excellent work, Plutarch's Lives, we are told of 
Pyrrhus, the celebrated king of Epirus, that " instead of 
teeth in his upper jaw he had one continued bone, 
marked with small lines resembling the divisions of a 
row of teeth." It is likely the union was only apparent. 

Some dentists are of the belief that the closer the 
teeth are together the more likely are they to decay ; 
but several of the best sets of teeth we have ever seen 
were in aged people, and they were extremely close 
together. When a tooth comes into contact with one 
that is decayed it runs some risk of injury thereby; 

Compared with the teeth of other creatures those of 
man seem to be rudimentary, and are partly like those of 
vegetable-eaters and partly like those of flesh-eaters. A 
study of them leads us to the conclusion that a mixed 
diet is the most suitable kind for him, but it in no wise 
proves that he cannot live and flourish on either vege- 
table or animal food alone. Analogy forbids us to come 
to that conclusion, and so does actual experience. One 
of the greatest efforts, perhaps the greatest effort of the 
human intellect, was the production of the Principia, and 
we know that Newton restricted himself to a vegetable 
diet while composing it. The requisite amount of nour- 
ishment is supplied in a less bulky form in animal food, 
but all the necessary elements are present in vegetable 
food. This is the gist of the whole matter. 

It is a very remarkable fact, but nevertheless a true 
one, that from the wildest savages in whom they are 



ii7 

sound and regular the teeth progressively deteriorate 
and are at the worst in people in the foremost grade of 
civilization. A startling fact, indeed ! The cause of this 
unfortunate degeneration is not definitely known, but it 
is generally attributed to the character of the food. The 
food of the savage is simple, and it is such as requires 
mastication. The complicate, sugary food of civilized 
life injures the teeth indirectly by deranging the digestive 
organs, and directly by favoring the accumulation of 
matter about them. But perhaps the greatest cause is 
the use of food of extreme temperatures. The teeth 
and gums are very sensitive to heat or cold, and bring- 
ing articles varying from the boiling to the freezing 
points into contact with them a number of times daily 
cannot but induce disease, and greatly promote it when 
it is present. Whatever the cause or causes may be, it 
is certain that in those of good constitution and health 
the teeth are soundest and most beautiful, and vice 
versa. 

On the appearance of the permanent teeth, if they 
tend to become irregular and decay, there is generally 
some vice in the system which demands correction. In 
such cases, all kinds of measures to promote physical 
development and growth will be in place, and as a medi- 
cine, phosphate of lime in doses of five to twenty grains 
in a little water three times a day, immediately after 
meals, will be of use. 

Crowding of the teeth is nearly always the cause of 
their irregularity, and it is met with in persons of weak 
constitution, but it may be present in healthy people, the 
cause being the injudicious leaving of the temporary 



n8 

teeth in the gums after the permanent ones have begun 
to appear. When the cause is weakness of the system 
and defective development of the jaw these troubles 
must be combated by remedies such as are spoken of 
above. Removing a tooth under these circumstances is 
not judicious unless the difficulty is extreme, — -still it 
may be done in many instances greatly to the improve- 
ment of the appearance of the mouth. 

Now, when one or several of the teeth are so placed 
as to be an actual disfiguration, what course should the 
person pursue? Well, the best thing to do is to consult 
a sensible dentist as to the propriety of interfering with 
them, and then have done whatever he may suggest. 
Undoubtedly, in many cases, it is possible to press them 
into an even line without injuring them in any respect ; 
nay, they can be entirely removed from the jaw and be 
replaced, and, what is more remarkable still, those of 
another person may be substituted, as Ambrose Pare, the 
greatest, perhaps, of French surgeons, fully demonstrated 
over three hundred years ago. Every surgeon must 
have met with instances where the front teeth were so 
loosened as to admit of being readily pressed into any 
position desired, and which became firm as ever in ten 
days or so. 

To keep the teeth from decaying it is necessary to 
keep them clean, and how? Not with toothpicks. 
These implements, made artistically of wood, are served 
up in bundles at the tables of some hotels, and although 
unknown at the domestic board they are familiar enough 
to everybody. Now, we condemn the toothpick in all 
its forms. The use of it injures the teeth and gums, and 



H9 

stripping the latter from the former creates places for 
particles of food to lodge. Thus it gives rise to a neces- 
sity for its continued use. If at any time it is absolutely 
necessary to use one in order to remove an adhering 
particle of food it should be manipulated with care. 

The mouth should be well rinsed every morning, and 
if done after each meal and at bedtime benefit will 
follow from it. Water alone will answer the purpose of 
a wash, but it is better to add to it some cdmmon salt or 
a little of the tincture of myrrh. j 

If the gums are spongy and inclined to bleed and the 
teeth loose perhaps, awash made of alum or thertincture 
of catechu will be in order. If a tooth is decayed, or 
even in absence of such trouble, an excellent wash is 
made of the permanganate of potash. It removes the 
odor and the tartar and other accumulations in a very 
acceptable manner. A very little of it will answer these 
ends, just enough to slightly color the water, say two or 
three grains to the pint of water. A fine antiseptic wash 
is made from salicylic acid, a grain or two of it to the 
ounce of water, and phenol sodique also makes a very 
good one. 

For polishing the teeth powdered charcoal is much 
used, but it should be used sparingly, for it is possible 
by much rubbing with it to wear off the enamel ; more- 
over, the brush displaces and irritates the ensheathing 
gums. Chalk and magnesia are also used, but the least 
objectionable and as a whole the best tooth powder is 
made by pulverizing any aromatic bark, or several 
together. 

No one should be so imprudent as to use mineral acids 



120 

for dentifrices, for they are corrosive and ruin the enamel 
of the teeth. 

It is curious to observe that the people of some East- 
ern countries do not desire their teeth to be white, but 
actually use agents to color them black. 

We will not do as people in general do, leave those 
afflicted with the toothache to suffer without even an 
expression of sympathy. There are few diseases more 
painful, and although not dangerous to life it may seri- 
ously impair health. Being seated near the brain it 
greatly disturbs the functions of the whole nervous 
system and unfits one for any desirable form of mental 
activity. If allowed to continue it completely breaks 
the temper. Nobody can bear it patiently. As to reme- 
dies, if the pain is continuous, the cause being an irri- 
tated condition of the parts around the root of the tooth 
or of the tooth itself, the application of anything warm, 
such as hot water or oil of cloves or the tincture of 
myrrh will afford relief; if it is intermitting, neuralgic in 
character, the cause being exposure of the nerve of the 
tooth, certain relief is obtained from the application of 
creosote ; and if it arises from both these causes, both 
methods of cure may be called for conjointly, and in 
addition the local use of laudanum or some other ano- 
dyne. 

It is wise to consider well before having a tooth ex- 
tracted, especially if it be a front one. When the cause 
of the trouble is a cavity, if the decayed parts are care- 
fully removed and it is well filled with gutta-percha or 
oxychloride of zinc or an amalgam or gold, it will 
remain free of pain and may last a long time. We 






121 

would here remark, however, that there is nothing more 
unsightly than the appearance of any filling about the 
teeth. We cannot imagine why it is that some people 
like to see them studded with gold. If a filling is neces- 
sary we would advise people to have it done with an 
agent less noticeable than this precious metal, for in- 
stance, the zinc cement, referred to above, which can be 
obtained of any hue. Indeed, from all we can learn 
about the subject, and we have heard it discussed over 
and over again before the American Dental Association, 
we do not believe that gold is any better as a filling, 
under most circumstances, than the oxychloride of zinc 
or an amalgam. When the front teeth become badly 
decayed they should be extracted and be replaced with 
artificial ones. 

In conclusion, we may say that mechanical dentistry 
does a very great deal to promote and preserve beauty. 
A well-made and properly-fitting set of artificial teeth is 
an ornament to the face and maintains it in shape to the 
end of life. We now see so few old people without 
teeth that we have scarcely any conception of what old 
age is like. " Sans teeth " cannot be said of the valetu- 
dinarians of modern times. 



LINES AND WRINKLES. 



* u Grief hatrr changed me, 
And careful hours, with Time's deformed hand, 
Hath written strange deformities in my face.' 5 

Shakspeare. 

It is not as the sad memorials of time alone that we 
propose to treat of lines and wrinkles, but also as aris- 
ing from the shape of the features and the expression of 
emotions, such as induce — 

" The low'ring eye, the petulence, the frown, 
And sullen sadness that o'ershade, distort, 
And mar the face of beauty." — Cowper. 

Now, in a handsome, blooming face, when at rest, 
there should be neither line nor wrinkle, — these are 
foreign to beauty of form. To be sure, they may be 
present in a degree, without causing actual ugliness ; 
and, indeed, some faces are made more interesting by 
them ; but it is by making it picturesque and adding to 
its character that they make a face attractive, and not by 
enhancing genuine beauty of it. We look on a smooth 
stream with pleasure, but on a rippling one with interest; 
the one excites feeling principally, and the other thought; 
and so it is with faces smooth and rough. 

Passing now to the details of our subject, we would 
remark that a line running from the wing of the nose by 

(122) 



123 

the corner of the mouth is seen in many well-cut taces, 
and, if marked, it indicates a happy disposition and a not 
very decided character. When this line passes some 
distance from the corner of the mouth, and one or two 
others appear behind it in smiling, it is indicative of a 
not very happy disposition and a character more or less 
decided. The shape of the bony framework of the face 
has a good deal to do with the production of these lines, 
and so has the temperament. 

A series of lines radiating from the outer angle of the 
eye gives a pleasant expression to the face, and imports, 
according to their distinctness, a merry, happy nature. 

A dark, bluish line, or circle rather, beneath the eye, 
if slight, may be beautifying, but when pronounced it dis- 
figures, and tells a tale of physical weakness or derange- 
ment of the system, and is suggestive of dissipation of 
all kinds. 

In very doleful people there is often a deep crease 
running outward and downward from the inner angle of 
the eye, — a condition of things which is unattractive. 

Parallel transverse lines on the forehead are striking 
in appearance, and are marks of a character more or less 
uncertain in nature. They apparently shorten the fore- 
head. 

One or more perpendicular lines in the mesial portion 
of the forehead add to its apparent height, and though 
not pretty, are tokens of a benevolent disposition and an 
amiable character. 

Intersecting lines are seen on the foreheads of people 
acquainted with grief and of a gloomy turn of mind. 

One or more concentric lines above the eyebrows are 



124 

noticeable on the foreheads of spirited, egotistic persons 
of shallow understanding. 

Lines radiating upward and outward from the inner 
end of the eyebrows are tokens of melancholy and sor- 
row. 

A transverse line at the root of the nose apparently 
shortens the latter, and it is observable in persons of 
stern, resolute character. It is the commander's wrinkle. 

All these lines may be present in the young as well as 
in the old; but they are generally more deeply marked 
in the latter. 

Turning our attention to wrinkles, and restricting the 
meaning of the term to the little furrows and ridges or 
corrugations of the skin, we observe that while lines 
may be present in both young and old, these are absent, 
as a rule, until the meridian of life has been passed. 
Sometimes they come prematurely, but not without cause. 
If we search we shall find in every instance that there is 
something at work undermining health and happiness. 
If these are overturned even in a person comparatively 
young, the face, though it were as beautiful as Hya- 
cinthus', will become disfigured and ugly. 

As the conduct of the mind plays an important part 
in determining the absence or presence of wrinkles, and, 
in a measure, of lines, we will indulge in a few remarks 
on the subject. On this head the advice of the old 
Samian sage, Pythagoras, is most excellent, " Do not 
devour your heart." A great many people worry them- 
selves into ugliness and foster it by nursing discontent. 
Let adversity but threaten, and they precipitate them- 
selves into the depths of apprehension and despair. Yes, 



125 

there are many who peer into the future and conjure up 
all kinds of misfortune as coming in their way. The 
medical poet, Armstrong, in his Art of Preserving Health 
(1744), justly exclaims : — 

" What avails it that indulgent heaven 
From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come, 
If we, ingenious to torment ourselves, 
Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own ?" 

Imaginary troubles should find no lodgment in our 
minds ; they should be discarded, and when fate does 
impose cruelties upon us it is then that fortitude and 
reason should be most relied upon. 

" Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss, 
But cheerily seek how to redress their harm." — Shakspeare. 

Everyone should know that there is nothing so much 
tends to make and keep the countenance smooth as a 
cheerful, loving spirit and an honest desire to be pleas- 
ing to others. Active, blithe, and artless, how could 
Thackeray's " Maid of Limavady" be otherwise than 
rounded, rosy, fair ? Keep the blood warm and the heart 
well filled with affection and there is no danger of the 
face shriveling. This advice is simple and can be fol- 
lowed by old and young. Really they are only young 
and seem young who feel young. We have seen a state- 
ment somewhere to the effect that if one would be pos- 
sessed of an amulet against wrinkles it is necessary to 
hold on to love and love of romance. 

City people are more afflicted with wrinkles than coun- 
try people are, and the reason is simply because the 



126 

conditions necessary to happiness, or rather health, 
which is the foundation of happiness, are not as good in 
the city as in the country. To a great many the still 
monotony of city life, apart from the impurity of the air 
and a thousand and one other enervating influences, is 
sufficient to break down their constitutions. The medi- 
cal philosopher, Broussais, declares :— " If large cities 
were not incessantly supplied with robust families from 
the country, their population would very perceptibly 
diminish, and would in time be converted into gloomy 
deserts." This statement is too sweeping, perhaps ; but 
whether it is true or not, one thing is certain, which is, 
that residing in the country and pursuing the ways of 
the people there will often, in a little while, clear away 
wrinkles. Doubtless the change of scene contributes 
much, for no difference what it may be, it is always ad- 
vantageous to a person broken down physically as well 
as mentally. In his Task, Cowper gives some fine 
descriptions of the beauties of the country and its 
effects. Of the health and gayety of spirits imparted 
to the sickly citizen, he writes : — 

" His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue, 
His eye relumines its extinguished fires ; 
He walks, he leaps, he runs, is winged with joy, 
And riots in the sweets of every breeze." 

Everything that favors health of body and serenity of 
mind assists in keeping the face free from unsightly 
delvings. 

In the study of wrinkles the question arises, what is 



127 

their immediate cause ? It cannot be mere leanness, for 
if it were we should certainly see them in young people, 
Bichat, the genius who laid the foundation of scientific 
medicine, in his Anatomie Generale (iypy) f tells us that 
it is because the organic contractility of the skin is de- 
fective. While the skin retains a proper degree of tone 
and elasticity wrinkles do not appear. These qualities 
are deficient in the aged, so the skin fails to adapt itself 
to the emaciated parts beneath. 

Does this explanation of their cause not suggest a 
method of removing wrinkles ? Is it not evident, from 
the premises, that if we can restore a proper amount of 
tone and elasticity to the skin, that we can thereby wipe 
them out ? How is this to be done ? We should en- 
deavor to improve, as' much as possible, the general 
health, and at the same time apply local stimulation, 
and how ? Without knowing the modus operandi of it, 
many are in the habit of using spirits of turpentine as a 
wash for the purpose. A somewhat similar remedy is 
the ordinary adhesive plaster, which is heated and stuck 
on the offending part. Bathing with cold water and then 
rubbing well with a coarse towel or a flesh-brush will do 
good service.. One or other of the washes spoken of in 
the next chapter may be used in connection with the 
cold-water ablution. 

It is very noticeable that an attack of any serious 
disease — say typhoid fever— smooths over and brightens 
up the most markedly wrinkled and haggard of faces; 
and the philosophy of it is this, that after the disease 
a period of health and excellent spirits follows, from 
which there is sure to be not only an increase in the 
amount of fatty tissue beneath the skin, but also an 



128 

improvement in the tone and contractility of the skin 
itself. 

A few words on some of the causes of lines. Want 
of equilibrium of the faculties of the mind gives rise to 
telling creases in many instances. Thus, when the rea- 
soning powers are weak we generally find furrows above 
the eyebrows and all across the forehead. We have 
again and again seen people cultivate this thoughtless 
but bold expression ; so let us say that throwing the eye- 
brows up is a sign of a very shallow or distorted mind. 
If this practice is due to deficiency of the faculty of 
reason, it should be strengthened, if possible ; and if it 
is merely a habit it should be corrected. 

A look of anger or any grimace often repeated will 
soon settle in the face, and such 'distortions are not re- 
moved without some trouble. 

Says St. Pierre : — " Persons disfigured by traces of 
vicious education and habits have it in their power to 
reform their looks, and to acquire a beauty altogether 
irresistible, by being internally good, gentle, compassion- 
ate, sensible, beneficent, and devout. These qualities of 
a virtuous soul will impress on their features celestial 
characters, beautiful even in old age." 

Proper treatment of body and mind will keep the 
countenance fresh and smooth for life. How sad to think 
that we will not or cannot do our duty to ourselves ! 
Alas ! that the poet could truthfully say — 

" We wither from our youth." — Byron. 






THE COMPLEXION. 



See her face's faultless tints, 

And note what healthy life can do. 

The complexion is an exceedingly important element 
of a handsome face; and we but justly accord to it the 
bad eminence of being the greatest, or at any rate the 
commonest, source of disfiguration. How many faces 
admirable in the outline and symmetry of their features, 
and of excellent expression, are charmless, even ugly, 
from defects in the complexion ! How could Scylla 
be handsome with a complexion of " a strong red in- 
terspersed with spots of white" (Plutarch) ? And it is 
not alone from the effect on the eye that an ugly com- 
plexion is objectionable ; the train of ideas excited by it 
is not such as leads to the belief that the soul within is 
spotless. It is almost beyond the power of anyone to 
fancy a pure, gracious soul in a repulsive body ; nor can 
it exist therein. If the inner nature is perfect it tends 
to transform the outward appearance to its own likeness. 

The complexion merits particular attention, not only 
because it is very liable to become unattractive and to 
disfigure, but also because the resources of our art 
enable us to beautify it to a great degree. 

As it is impossible to thoroughly understand many of 
the remarks we are about to make on the complexion 

(129) 



130 

as well as some of those made or to be made on other 
subjects, without a knowledge of the structure of the 
skin, we will here give a short account of it. 

Spread over the surface of the body the skin varies in 
thickness in different parts — the average being about a 
quarter of a line, but it everywhere consists essentially 
of two layers : an inner one, the dermis or true skin, and 
an outer one, the epidermis or scarf-skin. 

The dermis varies in thickness from one-sixth of a 
line to one and a half lines, and may be divided into two 
layers: an inner one of fibrous, elastic material, which 
rests on the cellular and fatty tissues — the packing 
elements of the body, and an outer one of conical pro- 
jections [papilla), each about one-hundredth of an inch 
in length, and one-two-hundred-and-fiftieths of an inch 
in diameter at the base. These little projections are easily 
seen in parallel ridges on the palm of the hand. One or 
more loops of fine blood-vessels (capillaries) and also one 
or more nerve-fibres are contained in each papilla. 

The epidermis varies in thickness from one-sixtieth to 
one-tenth of a line in different parts, but it is sometimes 
greatly thickened on the palms of the hands and soles 
of the feet, and it is without blood-vessels and nerves and 
consequently void of sensibility. It may be divided 
into two layers — an inner one (rete mucosum), in which 
is located the pigmentary matter upon which the color 
of the negro and the various tints of complexion in 
every other race depends, as do freckles, and an outer 
one (cuticle) which is constantly shedding in the form of 
scurf or dandruff. 

In the inner layer of the dermis are situated the 



I3i 

follicles of the hair and also the sebaceous glands, and 
we may add the perspiratory glands y for these are in 
immediate contact with its inner surface. 

The sebaceous glands, each of which consists of a 
little sack, are placed around the roots of the hair — from 
two to eight around each. The matter secreted by 
them is oily, and besides lubricating the hair it renders 
the skin repellent of water. A stippled appearance of 
the nose is caused by sebaceous matter resting in the 
outlets of the hair follicles. 

The perspiratory or sweat-glands, each of which con- 
sists of a little knot of tubes, the open end of which rises 
spirally to the surface, are very numerous ; on the palm 
of the hand there are three thousand of them to the 
square inch. 

The texture and hue of the skin are most delicate in 
youth, but in both respects it differs greatly in persons of 
different temperaments, being as a rule smoothest and 
clearest in the sanguinous and vital. In people of 
nervous temperament the texture is generally good but 
the hue is defective, the red tint being absent almost ; 
and in the bilious both the texture and hue are often 
bad, the former coarse and the latter an ugly brown. 

Now if the texture of the skin is bad the color will 
also be bad; a fine skin, therefore, is the basis of a good 
complexion. 

Says Burke:— " In a fine complexion there is not 
only some variety in the coloring, but in the colors; 
neither the red nor the white are strong and glaring. 
Besides they are mixed in such a manner and with such 
gradations that it is impossible to fix their bounds." 



132 

This statement fairly indicates what the hues of a beau- 
tiful complexion should be. Absolute red and white are 
out of place and ugly; a blending of them in varying 
depth is what is desirable, but really the general ground 
or flesh-color which artists find so hard to imitate is a 
yellowish-pink. 

The color of the skin in all its varieties in the Cau- 
casian race is never an elementary one, it is always 
more or less mixed; but we can nearly always find a 
prevailing tint — white, yellow, red, brown, or olive. 

Some people have been puzzled to know why a race 
should be esteemed beautiful in proportion to the clear- 
ness of the skin. It is simply because the fair skin is 
most capable of showing vital and emotional activity. 
In the white skin only can we recognize the most deli- 
cate expressions of feeling. That charming language 
of innocence — blushing — we look for in vain in the sable 
cheek. 

In persons of weak, scrofulous constitution we some- 
times see the complexion wonderfully clear and beautiful, 
but it is only in the healthy that we need expect it to be 
lastingly beautiful. Herein lies the key to the right 
method of improving it. " When beauty's rose is with- 
ering ere its prime/' to use the words of Mrs. Hemans, or 
when the skin assumes an unnatural texture and hue, 
we may decide at once that there is something wrong 
elsewhere in the system which requires correction. 

In treating of the cheek we spoke of the artificial im- 
provement of the complexion, so we will not enter upon 
that subject again further than to say that not one of 
every ten of the people who paint themselves seems to 



133 

know when the point has been reached up to which the 
brush improves but beyond which it disfigures ; and that 
however expertly done the effect of this eclat emprunte is 
not very good, the artifice being too transparent. Per- 
haps we may better convey our meaning through 
Cowper : — 

" Lovely, indeed, the mimic works of art, 
But Nature's works far lovelier." 

Now it is the intention of Nature to give everybody 
a good complexion, and with the proper conditions a 
good one would be vouchsafed to each of us. Besides 
attention generally to the rules of health, cleanliness is 
an important matter here. Plenty of pure water with a 
little mild soap may be put down as an indispensable 
cosmetic and as a whole the best. For people of very 
delicate skin distilled or rain water is recommended, 
being free from alkaline minerals. Immediately after 
washing the face, sponging it with water of elder flowers, 
or of rosemary or of lavender, will have a brightening 
effect. If more decided agents are desired, half a drachm 
or so of either muriate of ammonia or chlorate of potash 
may be added to every pint of the aromatic water. Bay 
rum is another excellent stimulating wash. But of 
formal methods of obtaining a smooth, clear complexion 
the best by far is as follows : — Saturate cotton or chamois, 
or anything similar, with glycerine alone or with a little 
of either muriate of ammonia or chlorate of potash dis- 
solved in it, and keep it applied to the part at night until 
the desired result is obtained. The hands or any other 
part of the body may be treated in the same way. 



134 

The various preparations sold for the purpose of 
clearing the complexion contain either arsenic or mercury 
in some form. They generally prove injurious, but in 
suitable cases their alterative effects are beneficial. They 
should not be used either externally or internally unless 
under the guidance of a physician. The best medicines 
to use internally will be spoken of in the sequel. 

Having treated of all the measures necessary to im- 
prove and preserve the complexion in the general way, 
we will now speak specifically of certain troubles of it 
which nearly every one is at times affected with more or 
less, and which are great sources of annoyance and 
mortification. We refer especially to freckles, to those 
little black-headed accumulations of matter in the skin 
which are popularly believed to be worms, and to pimples 
or acne. Innocent as these things are they are dreadful 
to many people. Only those who have been afflicted 
with them can form any idea of how much anxiety and 
depression of spirits they can cause. Many a one has 
stayed at home and moped about for a week from a bare 
pimple on the cheek. Indeed, that person must be pos- 
sessed of much more than an average amount of fortitude 
whom a blotched face cannot abash or inspire with a 
sense of humiliation. He must be a hero if he can dis- 
abuse his mind of the consciousness of his unsightly 
imperfections. It is well that ugliness does affect people 
in so decided a manner, for it saves others the pain that 
arises from witnessing it. The following notes as to the 
cure of the affections spoken of will, we believe, be pro- 
motive of beauty and happiness : — 

Freckles, or little yellow spots, give a stained, un- 



135 

pleasant appearance to the face. They are generally 
seen in persons of the blonde type, particularly those 
with reddish hair, and are most plentiful in the heat of 
summer. They are increased by any digestive derange- 
ment and by exposure to the sun. In setting about their 
removal it is necessary to get the system into as healthy 
a condition as possible, and to this end the pill recom- 
mended below should be used. Various washes are 
useful and the ones already given for general use will be 
found very good. The glycerine application, too, may be 
used. But it is well to remember that freckles are seated 
in the inner layer of the epidermis, so that surface reme- 
dies can hardly touch them. Unquestionably the best 
way of getting rid of them or any other discoloration, 
when very bad, is to eat them out with muriatic acid 
slightly diluted, or by applying a blister, or by exposing 
the face to the sun until it becomes burned sufficiently 
to be followed by exfoliation of the skin. This last is 
an excellent remedy and it takes only a few days to 
effect a cure. 

When the secretions of the sebaceous glands accumu- 
late in the hair follicles and the exposed ends become 
discolored we have as a result comedones or black- 
head worms. Should these excite inflammation and 
suppuration the result is a pimple, acne, a miniature 
boil. The main causes of both these troubles is some 
derangement of the action of the skin or of the system 
or of both, and they are met with mostly in young 
people. Living on carbonaceous food (starchy and 
sugary articles), without a proper admixture of the 
nitrogenized element, develops skin eruptions, and 
another source of them is excessive eating. 



- 136 

It may not be amiss to give here a statement of the 
proportions of the different classes of food and the 
average amount required to keep the system in a healthy 
condition. The proportions are as follows : — Carbon- 
aceous or heat-producing, seventy per cent. ; nitrogenized 
or muscle-nourishing, fifteen per cent. ; phosphatic or 
brain, nerve, and bone nourishing, two to three per cent.; 
and of mineral and other elements the remainder. The 
average amount of food required daily by an average 
adult male is about as follows : — Forty ounces of solids, 
of which two-thirds are vegetable, and from twenty to 
thirty ounces of fluid. Females require less, but much 
exercise in either sex will call for more. 

Now, in the treatment of the above-mentioned diseases 
as in the treatment of diseases of all kinds, the first and 
most important step is to remove the cause, if possible. 
Besides complying with the rules of health, some medi- 
cine to give tone to the system, purify the blood, and 
correct the action of the skin will here prove of the 
utmost value. An admirable prescription for these pur- 
poses is as follows : — 

Compound extract of colocynth, . . Thirty-five grains. 

Sulphate of iron, Twenty-five grains. 

Extract of nux vomica, .... Ten grains. 

To be mixed and made into twenty-five pills, one of 
which may be taken once, twice, or three times a day. 
Cooling, acidulous drinks, such as lemonade, may be used 
freely and to an advantage. 

As to local remedies, after washing the face with 
either castile or carbolic acid or glycerine soap and luke- 



137 

warm water, it should be briskly rubbed with a coarse 
towel until it is perfectly dry and glowing. Sponging 
with the washes heretofore spoken of will here be of 
vast service. 

The " black-heads " may be nearly always dislodged 
by gentle pressure, but if they do not come away easily, 
to persist in the attempt to force them will only turn 
them into pimples. Sometimes an actual pimple may be 
cut short in this way, but when once it has begun to form 
it usually goes on until matter is formed, when it may be 
pricked with a needle and gently squeezed, which will 
expedite the cure. 

For pimples, a wash that is sometimes very serviceable 
is made by adding half a drachm of bi-carbonate of soda 
to half a pint of any aromatic water, and carbonate of 
ammonia in the same proportions is excellent. At night 
a little of the following ointment may be applied to the 
affected parts : — 

Lard, . . Six drachms. 

Glycerine, . . . . . . . Two drachms. 

Carbolic acid, Half a drachm. 

This ointment is very good for a variety of other erup- 
tions and troubles, such as ring- worm and bites of insects. 
There is a multitude of other skin diseases, but com- 
pared with the ones we have treated of they are not very 
common. Most of them will be more or less benefited 
by the foregoing treatment, but if they are at all severe 
in nature they should receive special medical attention. 



THE HAIRS. 



" Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, 
And beauty draws us with a single hair." — Pope. 



In the hair of the head, kind Nature's curious robe 
both protects and adorns ; and how admirably ! What 
a perfect shield against extremes of temperature and of 
direct violence to the delicate brain ! What beauty in 
its waving tresses and shining hues! The glory of the 
head : poets have delighted to sing of it, and priests 
have proclaimed it sacred. 

Though equally useful and ornamental to man as to 
woman, a fine head of hair has been in all ages the special 
pride of the latter. And we all agree with St. Paul in 
his statement, " If a woman has long hair, it is a glory to 
her." 

The hairs, like the nails, are appendages to the skin, 
and in structure are modifications of it. They are found 
throughout the entire surface of the body, except, per- 
haps, the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. 
As many as seven hundred have been counted on a 
square inch of the scalp. They are everywhere better 
developed in man than in woman, except on the head, 
where, as a rule, they are more healthy and do not turn 
gray as soon. 

(138) 



139 

A hair may be described as consisting of two parts : 
the shaft, or external portion, which is cylindrical, flex- 
ible, elastic, and of various hues from white to red and 
to black, and the root, or bulb, which rests in and slightly 
beneath the inner layer of the dermis. Both shaft and 
root are insensitive, and are without blood-vessels as 
well as nerves ; neither grows nor lives. They are as 
much dead products as the epidermis, and their freshness 
is maintained by imbibition. 

Examined under a microscope, the shaft of a hair is 
seen to be composed of an external layer or coat of 
minute scales (the cuticle), which are directed upward 
and outward, and an internal portion (the cortex), which 
is fibrous, and in which the coloring matter exists. 
Within the cortical portion runs sometimes a central 
axis (the medulla), of granular material, by which oily 
matter may be carried easily. 

The root of a hair is of pretty much the same structure 
as the shaft, but it is softer and thicker, and less dis- 
tinctly divided into layers. It is seated in a little follicle 
or flask-shaped fibrous sack, and at its end it embraces a 
minute papilla, from which it is developed. The follicle, 
which is really an infolding of the dermis, being elastic, 
tightly clasps the growing root, and thus moulds, as it 
were, the forming hair. 

Chemical analyses of hair show it to be composed of 
an albuminoid substance — sulphur, lime, phosphorus, 
iron, magnesia, and an oil upon which it is believed its 
color depends. There is more iron in dark than in fair 
hair, and there is an excess of phosphate of lime in either 
when gray. 



140 

It may not be superfluous to say that a hair does not 
grow at the terminal end of its shaft; all addition to its 
length is made at the other end ; it is newest at the root, 
as everybody who dyes very well knows. 

The hairs generally rise obliquely from the skin, and 
are arranged systematically in parallel lines or in whorls. 
When the arrangement is irregular, and they are inclined 
to project in all directions, it is hard to keep them 
dressed. This is often noticed in those of the eyebrows. 
By continued forcing we can give them any inclination 
desired. 

We have said that hairs are cylindrical in form, and so 
they are, as a rule, but they are sometimes much com- 
pressed ; and they are inclined to curl in proportion to 
the degree of compression. 

Very few substances are worse conductors of heat 
than hair, and this property serves the important pur- 
pose of maintaining the head constantly at the same 
degree of temperature. As bearing on this point, we 
may say that of two persons equally exposed to the 
rays of the sun, one with plenty of hair and the other 
with very little, the former suffers less than the latter 
from the heat, — a statement which is contrary to the 
popular belief on the subject. If the heat, however, 
originates in the system, it is much more freely dissi- 
pated when the hair is short. 

Hair is very absorbent of moisture, which thickens 
and elongates it. So marked are these properties, that 
the latter is availed of to make an instrument (a hygrom- 
eter) for determining the state of moisture of the at- 
mosphere. 



Hi 

There is no tissue of the body resists decay so long 
as the hair. We have seen specimens of it which had 
been buried for hundreds of years, and they did not 
seem much the worse from it. It requires the caustic 
alkalies or the mineral acids to dissolve it. 

The life of a hair may be short or long, it may grow 
for an indefinite length of time ; but any great disturbance 
of the skin, such as that consequent on typhoid fever, 
sometimes leads to its falling off. This does not, how- 
ever, prevent another one from rising in its place. There 
is generally too much apprehension in regard to this 
matter, so w r e repeat that when a hair falls out during 
the course of any severe disease it is rarely wanting in 
a successor stronger than itself. 

There has never been a fixed preference for any spe- 
cial color of the hair, but among different peoples we can 
trace a particular admiration for some one tint. Thus 
black was and is yet especially prized by the Jews, while 
a fair or rather a golden hue, the color of Psyche's, de- 
lighted many of the Greeks. We believe dark hair is 
most in favor among us. It is said that of two ladies, 
one with dark and the other fair hair, the chances of 
matrimony are as three to two in favor of the former. 
It is certain, however, that the majority of beauties are 
fair-haired. This color is usually present in persons of 
sanguineous and vital temperaments, which are most 
favorable to grace of features and delicacy of complex- 
ion, as well as that warmth and sweetness of disposition 
which give openness and charm to the face. We may 
say that the darker the hair the coarser it is, and the 
more tenacious the frame and character. 



142 

Red hair is not much admired, and it is disliked by 
none so much as those to whom it belongs. For our 
part, we think some shades of it very beautiful, for in- 
stance, auburn, which is in most cases accompanied with 
dark eyes and a fine complexion. Red-haired people 
are active, both physically and mentally. There are 
grounds for the popular belief that they make trouble- 
some companions : it is their passionate nature that has 
led to it. 

When treating of the eye, we stated that distinctness 
or purity makes any color beautiful, and the same holds 
good in regard to the hair. 

Now, apart from the color, we may declare that the 
coarser and more abundant the hair, the stronger is the 
person. Thus, powerful Samson's locks were very pro- 
fuse, and we are told of the headstrong Absalom, that 
" he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels'' 
(Bible), or six and a quarter pounds. Some question 
this view, except when it is made in reference to the hair 
of the head and face. For example, Goethe says : — " A 
superfluity of hair on the chest and lower limbs rather 
indicates weakness than strength." This is not the 
popular view, but it may be the correct one. Whether 
it is or not, however, all are agreed that a heavy head of 
hair is a sign of a vigorous, sound constitution, and of 
the presence of a plentiful supply of good blood. On 
the other hand, when it is poorly developed or inclined 
to fall off, or both, there is a lack of healthy activity and 
nourishment at its roots. A knowledge of these facts 
enables us to intelligently undertake the task of promot- 
ing its growth. 



x 43 

Now, the first thing to do in setting about the invigora- 
tion of the hair is to see whether or not the system is in 
a healthy state, and then whether or not there is a suffi- 
cient amount of pure, rich blood in the veins. Should 
there be a deficiency in these respects, it is the first thing 
that should claim our attention. The principles of hy- 
giene should be complied with, and perhaps it may be 
useful to take some purifying tonic medicine, than which 
there is none better than the prescription given in the 
chapter on the Complexion. 

As to local remedies for increasing the growth of the 
hair, if the hair and scalp are dry, we should apply some 
oil, and the best is made by mixing castor oil and eau 
de cologne in equal amounts. It should be well rubbed 
into the scalp, and then a stiff brush should be used until 
a glowing sensation is produced in the parts. Oiling 
and brushing the hair alone will not produce the desired 
effect. 

Should it be thought necessary to use a stimulating 
oil — a real hair invigorator — the following has no supe- 
rior: — 

Tincture of cantharides, . . . Half an ounce. 

Aromatic spirits of ammonia, . . One and a half ounces. 

Glycerine, Three ounces. 

Spirit of rosemary, . . . One ounce. 

This embrocation may be used either daily or weekly, 
and in the same manner as the oil spoken of above. 

Cutting the ends of the hair tends to invigorate it. 
How it does so we are unable to say, unless it be from 
the fact that it is thus made more liable to be moved by 



144 

friction, which leads to greater functional activity about 
the roots. This explanation seems very plausible when 
we consider that the shorter the hair is cut the better it 
serves to increase its growth and strength. 

We may here note a few of the avoidable causes of 
weakness of the hair. 

Many persons ruin their hair by repeated washings 
with strong soap, while the mildest, even, should be used 
sparingly, for it destroys the oil upon which its freshness, 
and to some extent, also, its color, depends. By the 
way, ten or fifteen grains of carbonate of ammonia to the 
quart of water makes an excellent wash for cleansing the 
hair and scalp. 

The use of curling irons and frizzing wires is injurious 
to the hair, and the same may be said of plaiting and 
papering, though in a less degree. The injury arises 
chiefly from compression, which adds to the density as 
well as changes the shape of the hairs. Curling and 
crimping can be practiced, and with very little injury to 
the hair, by first applying a bandoline or glutinous 
pomade, and an excellent one is made by dissolving a 
drachm or more of gum tragacanth in four ounces of 
eau de cologne and the same amount of water. 

The constant use of powder is also injurious, especially 
if it be alkaline in nature. For the hair, and also as an 
absorbent generally, the best powder is that made of 
rice — pure and simple. This is the basis of some of the 
so-called violet powders, and nothing could be better. 

Baldness does not naturally come with years, but it 
very often does. There is no possible reason why the 
hair should not be as plentiful at seventy as at twenty- 



■145 

five. Strong, healthy people generally retain it to the 
last. 

Unlike baldness, grayness of the hair is naturally 
brought about by years, but it frequently appears prema- 
turely. We have seen gray heads over which twenty- 
five summers had not passed. Mental trouble of some 
kind is nearly always the cause. Profound agitation has 
been known to bleach it almost like magic. Sir Walter 
Scott but speaks the truth in saying: — 

" Deadly fear can time outgo, 
And blanch at once the hair." 

Mary, Queen of Scots, and Marie Antoinette are often 
cited as instances in which this sudden change occurred, 
and numerous others are on record. 

As we have already stated, grayness of the hair occurs 
earlier in men than in women; the only reason for this, 
so far as we know, being that the latter are much less 
liable to be affected with intense mental perturbations. 
We may also remark that, as a rule, the beard does not 
get gray as soon as the hair of the head. 

Bacon but expresses an opinion which is still popular 
when he says : — " Early grayness without baldness is 
a token of long life/' This assurance will be a source 
of consolation to many. The explanation of it is that 
people of strong constitution are most subject to intense 
mental conditions which cause grayness. 

It is curious to note that grayness of the hair and a 
fresh, fine complexion are not at all incompatible, and, 
on the other hand, that the face may be faded and worn 
while the hair still retains its natural hue. 



146 

Passing now to the subject of dyeing of the hair, we 
would say at once that if the purpose is to mask the 
grayness of age we entirely disapprove of it. Silvery 
locks are an ornament to the aged, or, as it is put in the 
Bible, "The beauty of old men is their gray heads." 
But when the grayness is premature, dyes can often be 
used with good effect as regards beauty. This is especi- 
ally so when the face is full and the complexion good. 

Now, in using dyes, the natural color should in each 
case be imitated as closely as possible. Most people are 
too anxious to improve very much, and, also, to select 
the color that pleases most, no matter what the natural 
color of their own may have been. A jet black is the 
favorite, and, undoubtedly, it is very pretty, but it is 
entirely wrong to use it in all cases. Such a practice 
strikes us as a plain violation of common sense. 

The walnut stain, spoken of elsewhere, or, what is as 
good and far more easily obtained, a concentrated decoc- 
tion of potato-parings, will be found useful by many to 
deepen the tint of very light hair, and, also, to hide 
grayness, if a dark brown is desired. Should a black 
color be wished for it may be obtained by moistening the 
hair, after using the walnut stain, with a solution of sul- 
phate of iron, say half a drachm to a pint of water, 
either alone or perfumed to suit, a brush or sponge being 
used to rub it in. If the black thus produced is not 
deep enough a little of the tincture of nut-galls may be 
added to the walnut stain, or it will answer alone. The 
trouble with this iron black is that it is hard to apply, 
and, we may add, it does not remain permanently of the 
same tint, but nearly the same must be said of all dyes. 



147 

The best golden dye is made, not of arsenic, but by 
dissolving a little of the sulphide of cadmium or cadmia, 
as it is generally called, in water. 

Almost if not all the hair-dyes sold are made of either 
lead and sulphur or nitrate of silver and sulphur. A 
chemical analysis of twenty of these nostrums shows 
that fourteen of the number are made of the former in- 
gredients, and the remainder, the so-called restoratives, 
of the latter. The amount of lead varies from one to 
sixteen grains to the ounce. The silver preparations 
come in two bottles, one of which is to bring out the 
color, which it does by chemical action. The silver is 
present in the form of the sulphide, which is insoluble. 
This dye stains the skin badly and renders the hair crisp. 

The dye which results from the union of lead and sul- 
phur is of a fine black hue. It fades a little, but its 
beauty makes it a favorite. The objection to the use of 
it is that some of the lead may be absorbed, and give 
rise to debility, or, perhaps, even painter's colic ; but we 
do not see how this can very well occur since the sul- 
phide of lead — the form in which it is present — is in- 
soluble. Indeed, to give our candid opinion, we think 
the danger not nearly so great as some would have us 
believe. If care is exercised to prevent it from lying in 
contact with the scalp, through accumulations about the 
roots of the hair, no harm can result. The following 
formula is as good as any other:— 

Sugar of lead, Half a drachm. 

Lac sulphur, One drachm. 

Glycerine, One ounce. 

Rose water, . . . . . . Three ounces. 



148 

This mixture is to be well shaken and applied with a 
sponge or brush, once or twice a day, until the desired 
depth of color is obtained, and then once a week, or 
oftener, if necessary. 

Unobjectionable dyes of every shade can be made of 
aniline, but we need not dwell on them, as those we have 
treated of will answer every purpose. 

Sometimes it is desirable to render the shade of color 
of the hair lighter. For this end a tolerably concentrated 
and slightly acidulated solution of peroxide of hydrogen 
will answer ; but a much cheaper, and, perhaps, as good 
an application is sulphur. Mix it with a little water, 
then apply it to the hair and let the strong rays of the 
sun fall upon it for an hour or so, or until the desired 
fairness is produced. Chlorine gas or solutions of chlor- 
ides will bleach the hair and so will a hot, strong solu- 
tion of oxalic acid, but care should be taken not to let it 
touch the skin. 

When the hairs are irregular or otherwise objection- 
able on any part, it may be desirable to remove them, 
but this should not be done hastily. Some person of 
good taste should be consulted before venturing to de- 
stroy them. It is unwise to use any of the nostrums 
sold as depilatories ; they are made of arsenic, caustic 
potash, quick-lime, or litharge, and act by destroying 
the roots of the hair. Ammonia, as strong as can be 
borne, will have the same effect, but about the best 
way to remove hairs is to pull them out with a pair 
of pincers. It will be necessary, in all probability, to 
repeat the operation, but it has to be nearly always 
done, no difference what method is resorted to. It is 



149 

very hard to destroy the vitality of the papillse of the 
hairs. 

We have now exhausted the subject of the hair of the 
head, or rather in general, and, of course, our remarks 
are just as applicable to the hairs of the face as those of 
the head, but a few notes addressed more especially to 
the former, particularly the beard, will not be out of 
place. 

The great lawgiver of the Jews said, " Thou shalt not 
round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar 
the corners of thy beard." A long, flowing beard was 
esteemed by them the noblest ornament of the person 
and a mark of wisdom. To kiss the beard was consid- 
ered an act of high esteem and love, and was permitted 
only to near relatives. To neglect or abuse it indicated 
great grief, while to be deprived of it was a sign of ser- 
vility and infamy. At present the Jews and Arabs, 
faithful to their ancient custom, continue to let the entire 
beard grow for a period of thirty days as an indication 
of mourning. 

"By the beard of Aaron," and " By the beard of the 
Prophet," are regarded by the Jew and Moslem, re- 
spectively, as among the most solemn of oaths. 

Lycurgus prohibited cutting of the beard and the hair 
of the head also, his reason being, as Plutarch tells us, 
that "hair makes the handsome more graceful and the 
ugly more terrible"; and Alexander the Great, like 
William the Conqueror, ordered his troops to " shave 
their beards, these being a ready handle in battle" 
(Plutarch). 

The Romans cut their hair and shaved off the beard 



ISO 

or not, as they saw fit, and the same may be said of the 
Greeks generally. In the Belvidere Apollo the hair is 
moderately long and forms a heavy roll in front, but 
there is no beard. 

Our Saxon ancestors did not curtail the growth of the 
beard nor of the hair of the head either. 

The Chinese and Japanese, like our Indians, keep the 
face almost free from hair, and most of the old Egyptian 
paintings represent the men beardless ; but, generally 
speaking, all the nations of the East have always allowed 
the beard to grow to the fullest extent. Plato was 
honored with the title of " Bearded Master " by his ad- 
miring pupils and disciples, and most of the ancient 
worthies are represented with large beards — that of 
Aesculapius, the god of Medicine, being particularly 
long and of a golden hue. 

The beard is an attribute of the prophets, apostles, 
evangelists (with the exception of St. John), fathers of 
the church, and hermits. The female saints Paula Bar- 
bata and Galla are represented with long beards, which 
grew, we are assured, in response to prayers and for the 
purpose of repelling the addresses of the other sex. 
We may state in this connection that bearded women 
are not at all great curiosities. We have seen several. 
The last one we saw had a full beard, with a fairly- 
developed mustache, and she was married and the mother 
of two children. So a female beard does not repel the 
other sex in modern times. 

Probably the longest beard ever seen is that of a 
Philadelphian. He appeared in a Centennial procession 
of Germans, and it was then of fifteen years' growth and 



i5i 

measured nine feet. History records that the beard of a 
personage named Mayo was so long that when untied it 
reached to the ground. He was a source of amusement 
about the court of Charles V. But that of the person 
we have spoken of is much longer than this one's was. 

It cannot be said that any particular style of beard is 
affected by either the English people or ourselves, but 
whiskers alone or with a mustache are more generally 
worn by the former than the latter; and the mustache 
alone is much more generally worn by the latter than 
the former. 

The effect of a long head of hair and a long full beard 
is very disagreeable and it is due to association of ideas: 
the long hair of the head suggests the woman and the 
long beard the man. 

When the beard is allowed to grow excessively long 
or has any peculiar cut it gives the person an air of 
vanity and eccentricity. 

A moderately-full beard, besides affording protection 
against cold, adds energy and power to a man's appear- 
ance; but if beauty is the main consideration the shape 
of the face should determine the cut. 

If the forehead is low and the cheeks hollow, allowing 
the beard to be long emphasizes these defects; but when 
the forehead is very high and the cheeks not very thin 
it is better to have it pretty long. 

' If the face is broad and full, side locks are disfiguring; 
but a mustache and chin whiskers will here improve the 
looks. 

If the face is well proportioned and attractive in itself 
it is best to shave off all except, perhaps, the mustache. 



152 

The mustache is most improving to those with a very 
deep lower jaw; except, of course, in cases where it com- 
pletely covers an ugly mouth. 

A few special remarks on the color of the beard may 
not be out of place. It is very noticeable that its hue 
is generally lighter than that of the hair of the head, 
and the degree of lightness increases toward the chin. 
The only way to account for this blemishing difference 
of color is by referring it to degrees of difference in 
the strength and freshness of the hair ; and a variegated 
hue of it on any part is accounted for in the same way. 
If, then, we would bring about unity of color without 
resorting to dyes, we must endeavor to bring about a 
state of uniformity in its growth, and this can often be 
done by using the stimulating oily preparations already 
described. 

In conclusion, we would say by way of advice to every- 
one in whom, from constitutional peculiarities or other 
causes, the hair bulbs or papillae, rather, are almost or 
entirely absent, but who has a desire to be possessed of 
a beard, or at any rate of a mustache, that he had better 
not deceive himself in regard to what remedies of any 
kind can do to promote his cherished hope. As a rule, 
all the agents for the purpose advertised as infallible 
are unworthy of confidence. If the procedures and 
remedies we have given do not bring the desired result 
it will be useless to try others. 



SPECIAL FLAWS OF THE PERSON. 



" Beauty still has blemish, and the mind 
The most accomplished its imperfect side." 

Armstrong. 



Of very few could it be said, as of Absalom, "From 
the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there 
was no blemish in him" (Bible). Nearly every one has 
flaws. But we will not indulge in this vein, for we have 
no desire to place ourselves in the list of people who 
libel their fellow-creatures by charging them with num- 
berless defects and depravities. Even if they were full 
of imperfections there is nothing to be gained by draw- 
ing mournful pictures of their miserable condition. 
Instead of indulging in patronizing commiseration, we 
should rather strive to inspire hope, and, if in our power, 
assist them in their efforts to perfect themselves. In our 
estimation the worst deformed people in existence are 
those who can see nothing noble or beautiful in hu- 
manity. 

Now there are numerous flaws, more or less common, 
which are amenable to treatment, and, therefore, merit 
serious attention, for unless there is no remedy nobody 
should pass through life with any disfiguring or dis- 
abling deformity or disease. We have already treated 

(*53) 



154 

of a great many of these remedial troubles which admit 
of self-cure, but we deem it wise to speak of a few more 
of a like character, which we could not very well dis- 
pose of in any of the preceding chapters. 

Mothers' marks (naevi) or moles are common and by 
no means attractive affairs. These spots are generally 
small in compass, but they may be very extensive, — so 
extensive as to involve even one-half the face, when 
they frequently receive, popularly, the title of claret 
stains. In appearance they often resemble creatures, 
such as moles and mice; or fruit, such as strawberries, 
cherries, pears, currants, and mulberries; and at the 
time of year when the particular fruit to which there is 
a resemblance is maturing, they have a tendency, in 
some cases, to become enlarged and sensitive. This is 
an extraordinary fact, one which it is impossible to ac- 
count for otherwise than by referring it to the direct 
influence of the mind. 

Mothers' marks may be elevated or not, and with or 
without hair. They are generally mere discolorations, 
due to the presence of abnormal pigmentary matter in 
the inner coat of the epidermis; but sometimes they are 
not only discolorations but growths, and these are occa- 
sionally vascular, permeated with blood-vessels. 

The color of mothers' marks may be red or brown or 
black, or but slightly different from that of the surround- 
ing skin. The reddish-colored ones are vascular, and 
are greatly influenced by emotions of the mind. During 
a fit of excitement they become larger in size and 
brighter in color; and warm weather, or anything which 
accelerates the circulation, has the same effect. Under 



155 

these circumstances they sometimes burst and bleed 
profusely. 

Of the cause of mothers' marks very little is known. 
They are more numerous in some families than in others, 
but they do not occur with sufficient regularity to war- 
rant us in regarding them as hereditary. They are 
commonly attributed to impressions made on the mother 
during the period of gestation, and we can scarcely 
doubt but that they do occasionally originate in this 
way. Dr. Dunglison, than whom there are few better 
authorities, is of a different opinion; but he fails to give 
us any explanation at all. In his Human Physiology 
(1835) he says: — " Cases of harelip are perpetually oc- 
curring, yet we never have the maternal imagination 
invoked, because it is by no means easy to discover any 
similitude between the affection and extraneous objects. 
Moreover, in animals of all kinds, even the most inferior, 
as well as in plants, monstrous formations are necessarily 
happening, where maternal imagination is out of the 
question. " Whether they are of chance occurrence or 
not they are born with us, and if they do not happen to 
be located on the face or other exposed parts they are 
of comparatively little account; but, unfortunately, it is 
just on these parts that they do generally appear. 

The most important question in regard to mothers' 
marks is the one of their curability. Well, we have no 
hesitation in saying that they can be nearly always com- 
pletely removed, and the earlier done the easier. The 
method of treatment will vary with their size and char- 
acter. If they are non-vascular, and even when slightly 
vascular, any caustic agent, and preferably nitric acid, 



i 5 6 

carefully applied, will have the desired effect; but if 
they are markedly vascular the best way to proceed is 
to break the skin around their base and then apply a 
silk ligature. If thought necessary to keep the ligature 
in position, two or three needles should be passed 
through the growth previous to its application. It may 
be well to say that, in using the acid, it should be ap- 
plied drop by drop, until the spot is thoroughly saturated 
with it; and lest it might spread and affect surrounding 
parts, it is proper to take the precaution of smearing the 
latter with oil. 

Before dismissing the subject of mothers' marks, we 
may state that when they become swollen and tender 
the best thing to do, besides keeping them scrupulously 
clean, is to paint them daily with tincture of iodine. 

Warts (verrncae) are common disfigurations. These 
almost colorless excrescences seem to originate in the 
cuticle, which becomes much thickened; but all the 
layers of the skin may become involved. A tendency 
to them appears to be hereditary in some families; but 
we can scarcely doubt but that they can be transferred 
from person to person. There are many superstitions 
popular in reference to how they come, but it would be 
useless to recount them. We have seen instances in 
which they originated, beyond question, from sheer ap- 
prehension. 

There is little difficulty experienced in removing 
warts. The insensible portion should be pared off, and 
then one or two applications of nitric or any other 
strong acid will effect a cure. The old-fashioned method 
of cure consists in rubbing them with some substance, 



i57 

which is then put aside to decay. As soon as this agent 
is consumed the warts have disappeared. Bacon soberly 
relates how he got rid of a crop of them in this way. 
The imagination must play an important part in the 
operation. 

It may not be amiss to say a few words about corns 
(clavi). These growths, which are met with nearly 
always in the feet, arise, in every instance, from press- 
ure, and consist of epidermis much thickened. They 
are insensible in themselves, and cause pain only when 
pressed upon, which hurts the parts underneath, or when 
the tissues around them become inflamed. They are 
easily cured; but unless their cause is discontinued they 
will return. Except when they are inflamed, when it 
may be necessary to first apply a poultice, careful paring 
away of the hard tissue is all the treatment that is re- 
quired as a rule. Sometimes it is well to put a piece 
of adhesive plaster, from which the centre has been cut, 
over the part, so as to protect it for a time from all 
pressure. 

Styes (kordeoli), or little boils at the edge of the eye- 
lids, are very troublesome to many. They originate in 
the hair follicles, and mostly in debilitated persons. We 
can partly prevent them by toning up the system, and 
by allaying local irritation with one or other of the 
washes elsewhere spoken of; and when present we can 
remove them in a few days by applying a little poultice 
of flaxseed meal, which soon brings them to a top, 
when the cure will be hastened by pricking them with a 
needle, — precisely what we would do in treating boils 
wherever found. The popular practice of rubbing the 



i 5 8 

lid with a ring or the finger-nail does good sometimes. 
The way to charm them off, according to an old au- 
thority, is to stand where two roads cross each other, 
and repeat this couplet — 

" Sty, sty, leave my eye, 

And take the first person that passes by." 

The subject of bad breath deserves attention. It is 
remarked by a popular writer that he does not believe a 
woman could fall in love with Hyperion, if he had this 
disability; and it is quite as repulsive in a lady as in a 
gentleman. 

To have a sweet breath it is necessary to keep the 
mouth clean and the whole system, but particularly the 
digestive organs, in good condition. We have elsewhere 
spoken of mouth-washes, which can never be substituted 
by any of the masking preparations sold inpilular form, 
under the name of cachous. Still, some of these contain 
disinfecting substances and are at times useful to have at 
hand. We have also spoken of the measures which are 
calculated to fulfill the second indication. The prescrip- 
tion given in the chapter on the Complexion is excellent 
in many digestive derangements. We may here give a 
remedy for acidity, which is a great source of foul 
breath, besides being a painful affection. Dissolve a 
drachm of carbonate of ammonia in three ounces of 
water, either plain or aromatic, and take a teaspoonful 
or so, as required. This will act almost instantly, and is 
better than magnesia, which is much used. 

Shakspeare was not indulging his imagination exces- 



159 

sively when he compared Cytherea's breath to the odor 
of violets, for it is frequently as pleasant in children, 
and, not to mention instances of ladies, it is recorded 
of Alexander the Great that his breath was like a per- 
fume, and that his person was most agreeably fragrant. 
It is not usual to be favored with such an acceptable 
personal aroma, but by due attention to the laws of 
health, and cleanliness especially, it is possible for 
every one to prevent any unpleasant emanations. 

Soap and water are all the remedies necessary to re- 
move and to some extent prevent objectionable odors of 
the person; for instance, that consequent on perspira- 
tion. A bath taken for this purpose is much improved 
by adding to it a little carbonate of ammonia. 

Should the disagreeable scent arise from sores or 
runnings, as from the ears, it can be completely de- 
stroyed by a. wash made of permanganate of potash, in 
the proportion of a grain or so to the ounce of water. It 
may be used under any circumstances, for it can do no 
harm, but, on the contrary, may do much good as a 
healing agent. 

We will conclude this chapter of miscellaneous mat- 
ters with a few notes on the nails. These corneous 
appendages of the skin, each of which rests in a speci- 
ally modified portion of the dermis (the matrix), take the 
place of the epidermis, and should be shining, smooth, 
or but very faintly striated longitudinally, circular later- 
ally in form, and of a delicate pink hue. The posterior, 
fourth (the lunula), of each should be a little paler, and 
the free border of each much brighter than the rest; but 
it should be translucent throughout. White spots, 



i6o 

which come and go mysteriously, are frequently noticed 
in them. 

Water and a brush are all the agents necessary to keep 
the nails in order, except, of course, a sharp knife to 
trim them occasionally. Powders and files may be useful 
sometimes, but as a rule they are entirely uncalled for, 
and do more harm than good in the end. 

The appearance of short fingers is much improved by 
letting the nails be pretty long; but, in general, very long 
nails are ugly, besides, it is hard to keep them clean. It 
is customary in the East to wear them long, and in 
some instances they may be seen over six inches in 
length. 

In people of bad constitution the nails are poorly de- 
veloped, and are prone to turn in; but this latter condi- 
tion should not be confounded with ingrowing of the 
nails of the toes, which is caused by wearing tight shoes, 
and which often calls for their removal. 

When a nail is removed by violence or intentionally, 
a new one will grow in its place, unless some strong 
caustic agent is injudiciously applied. All that it is 
necessary to do under the circumstances is to apply cold 
water until the bleeding stops, and then keep a greased 
rag applied for a few days. 



DRESS AND BEAUTY. 



" Her purple habit sits with such a grace 

On her smooth shoulders, and so suits her face." 

Dryden. 
" The apparel oft proclaims the man." 

Shakspeare. 

Up to this point we have been discussing man, — physi- 
cal and mental, — and we have nothing more to say on the 
subject, but an intimately related one merits careful con- 
sideration. We refer to the one of dress. Now, although 
it is in some respects going beyond the pale of our allotted 
task, we believe it wise to give some account of it, not 
only because it is desirable that it should be beautiful in 
itself, but also because a great deal can be done through 
it to improve the appearance and effect of the face — of 
the whole person, in fact. It is in this latter regard es- 
pecially that we propose to treat of it; but a satisfactory 
discussion of the principles involved will lead us over 
the entire ground, or, at any rate, a sufficient amount of 
it to make our methods and rules so familiar to those 
who follow us attentively, that they can, under all cir- 
cumstances, rely confidently on their own judgment. 

The history of the development of dress-forms is a 
most interesting study. We advisedly use the term de- 
velopment, for the complicate dress of the present day 
has been developed from one of very simple description. 

(161) 



l62 

Beginning in the tunic and mantle of uncivilized peoples, 
it has passed through strange evolutions, some of which 
cannot be regarded as having resulted in the permanent 
" survival of the fittest." But we maybe misled in form- 
ing our opinion, by details; it is possible that our style 
or type of dress essentially embodies all the best feat- 
ures of those that have preceded it. 

The dress of the Greeks and Romans, throughout 
their long history, was comparatively simple, consisting 
of only two or three pieces, and this simplicity rendered 
it necessarily almost alike in both sexes. And trim- 
ming and embroidery and ornaments, as such, were, in 
general, matters of little or no concern, though occasion- 
ally all were worn in great profusion. Use was the main 
consideration, and yet their costume was, withal, very 
beautiful, as artists well know. They rightly regarded 
dress as an auxiliary to personal charms; their desire 
was that they, their real selves, should attract and be 
remembered, and not their dress. We are inclined, 
though reluctantly, to believe that a similar desire does 
not prevail at present to an equal degree ; or, if it does, 
it is not realized frequently, for it generally happens that 
one must confess of people, in the words of the author 
first quoted above — 

" I pass their form and every charming grace, 

But their attire, like liveries, of a kind 

All rich and rare, is fresh within my mind." 

In modern times, and principally since the early por- 
tion of the sixteenth century, there has been an increas- 
ing divergence in the style of attire of the sexes. The 



163 

fantastic female fashions then introduced by Marguerite 
de Valois, Queen of Navarre, were the progenitors of 
many more now or recently in force; and although 
male fashions have often borne marks of resemblance 
which might well lead us to believe that there was some 
imitation, yet from that time we can trace in it steps of 
improvement and reform. 

Male costume (our system) is, on the whole, more 
sensible, comfortable, and beautiful at the present time 
than ever before ; and with such qualities it is not at all 
strange that it is being introduced and adopted through- 
out the world. It displays the figure to advantage, and 
it is conducive to grace in movement. Female costume, 
we are sorry to say, cannot be spoken of in the same 
terms. Is it in accordance with the principles of mo- 
rality, of hygiene, and of beauty? The only answer we 
can give, to be truthful, is, that it generally does not sub- 
serve, satisfactorily, any of these three ends, which ought 
to be the great aims in dressing. Without intending to 
formally arraign it, we would remark that it impedes 
motion and mars its grace ; that it is supported in posi- 
tion mainly by a system of injurious compression, and 
not by resting on the shoulders — and, by the way, it 
might thus find support through the use of well-boned, 
neat, but not tight-fitting corsets, provided with broad 
shoulder-bands; that it partakes too much of the nature 
of an ill-distributed, useless burden; and that in its 
tendency to excessive, meaningless intricacy and adorn- 
ment, it runs counter to good taste, if not to the laws of 
art. Really, it would seem as if the more people had 
tried to decorate themselves the greater has been the 



164 

disfiguration. We cannot refrain from calling to mind 
the oft-quoted but still truthful lines of Thomson — 

" Loveliness 
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, 
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most." 

We desire it to be distinctly understood that in noting 
down these strictures we do not believe that it is impos- 
sible to retain the main outlines of the prevailing type 
of female dress and yet obviate nearly all objections. 
We would not for a moment think of replacing it with 
any of the half-manly styles which certain cliques pro- 
pose, and which are dubbed reform. We have no desire 
to see women dressed like men; but every one being a 
free agent and advocating consistency in everything, we 
believe that persons of masculine qualities should don 
masculine habiliments, a la Turc y if they please. The 
Sorosis takes Beau Brummel's saying to read, " Dress 
makes a man," substituting the indefinite for the definite 
article ; and not without reason, for the power of the 
association of ideas is such that if a woman were 
dressed like a man we could scarcely think of her other- 
wise than of his sex, and vice versa. Readers of the 
Spectator cannot but remember the caustic article on 
people who dress so that one is compelled to regard 
them as doubtful in sex. Referring to ladies in riding- 
habits, it is said that had one of these " appeared in Juve- 
nal's days with what an indignation should we have 
seen her described by that excellent satirist? He would 
have represented her in a riding-habit, as a greater mon- 
ster than a centaur. He would have called for sacrifices 



i6 5 

of purifying waters to expiate the appearance of such a 
prodigy. He would have invoked the shades of Portia 
or Lucretia to see into what the Roman ladies had 
transformed themselves." But to repeat, we do not 
want similar costume for both sexes any more than we 
want similar education; we do not want woman to be 
made like man, for, as Tennyson beautifully expresses 
it— 

" Could we make her as the man, 
Sweet love were slain." 

However, whether the type of dress (female) of modern 
times is possessed of beauty or not, it is not as much to 
the advantage of anyone laboring to mask deformities 
as might be supposed. It emphasizes too much important 
parts of the figure, and it deals too extensively in detail 
refinements — it is not uniform and flowing enough. But 
without indulging any longer in preliminaries we will 
enter on our difficult task. 

We have spoken elsewhere of proportion as being one 
of the essential elements of beauty of form. Now, in 
the cut of the dress it should be fully considered, with 
the view of making the figure, if defective, appear of 
pleasing size as a whole and proportionate throughout. 
These points are far too generally ignored in dress-cutting. 
To be sure, if we have a faultless figure to clothe there 
is nothing more to do than to see that the dress is artistic 
in itself; but where it is not, it is often judicious to en- 
croach a little on the rules of art in the latter. 

If a person is tall and thin the bad effect of these 
peculiarities can be considerably corrected by cutting 



i66 

the dress as full as is consistent with neatness, and the 
thicker the fabric the better. A person with a taste for 
padding can here indulge it advantageously. It is much 
more difficult to improve the appearance of a short, 
stout person. Here we do not want much depth of 
material and no unnecessary fullness ; still it will not do 
to gird a great deal. 

A long, wide dress makes a tall person appear shorter, 
and the reverse ; but if short and tending to a state of 
embonpoint, very short, narrow dress will cause the 
person to appear very ungraceful ; it is best to have it 
moderately full and long. A dumpy woman in short 
dress is a sight. If we could fancy Daphne such and in 
such a costume we do not think that it would have been 
necessary for her to hide in order to shun the addresses 
of Apollo. 

High, full neck-dress improves people with dispro- 
portionately long necks, while it makes matters worse 
if their necks are disproportionately short. When this 
method of correcting the objectionable effect of a neck 
of disproportionate length is resorted to, care must be 
taken not to spoil the shape of the shoulders and also 
the length of the bust in the attempt. In the instance 
of a long neck a little addition to the height and breadth 
of the shoulders will be in place, and the waist may be 
made a little lower; and if the neck is short, opposite 
measures will be proper. Placing anything around the 
neck shortens it apparently. 

Full or rather wide neck-dress lessens the apparent 
size of a large face and head, and vice versa, 

A square corsage makes a thin person seem still 



167 

thinner, but if tall it detracts from the height. A shawl 
or heart-shaped one, not giving rise to a marked con- 
trast, does not make thinness more noticeable, but it will 
add seemingly to the height. The latter is of course the 
proper sort for persons short and thick. 

A low corsage makes the figure appear shorter and 
fuller, and a high one the reverse. 

Some of the principles of how to improve the appear- 
ance of the whole figure, or of any part of it, by the cut 
of the dress are well illustrated in the item of gloves. 
If the hands are long and thin the gloves should not 
extend far up the arms, but if the hands are short and 
thick their shape will be improved by gloves that en- 
croach upon the wrists. Again, bracelets will make the 
hands seem shorter. Then, if it is not desirable that the 
hands should attract attention, the gloves should not be 
showy or in any way outre in style. Those of a dark 
color appear smallest, unless the arm is exposed or there 
is a good deal of white or light-colored materials about 
the wrist. But in touching on color we are anticipating. 

The pattern or design of dress fabrics merits particular 
study. According to well-known optical principles, 
horizontal lines, stripes, or what are the same practically, 
plaits and flounces, make a tall, thin person appear 
shorter and stouter, whereas, perpendicular ones have 
precisely opposite effects. Oblique lines have a slightly 
lengthening effect. These facts in regard to the effect of 
the direction of lines are of great importance, but we 
cannot dwell on them. We may add, however, that 
either vertical or horizontal lines are consistent with 
symmetry and unobtrusive style, but the former are more 



i68 

beautiful than the latter, for the reason that they do not 
come into conflict with the natural lines of the person, 
and oblique lines are bold and gay and are only com- 
patible with the ardor and gayety of the jeunesse. Noth- 
ing can more disfigure a person advanced in life than a 
hat balanced on the side of the head or on the forehead 
at an angle of forty-five degrees or so. Its obliquity is 
incompatible with her years. 

Large designs are suitable for large-sized people— small 
ones will add to their apparent size ; and small designs 
are suitable for small-sized people- — large ones will dwarf 
them still more, apparently. 

Checked and, to a lesser degree, barred materials show 
defects in the proportions, particularly the symmetry of 
the figure, especially when they are large enough to be 
easily counted. They serve as measures to reckon the 
relative size of parts. 

We may here state that small, intricate designs gener- 
ally appear tawdry, just as much trimming and intricate 
coloring do. The philosophy of it is simply this, that 
the eye derives no satisfaction from contemplating a 
broken view. It wants some one thing to repose upon 
at once, and this is why an open space, a sweeping curve, 
and a single color are most pleasing. Again, as Addison 
states, " The mind naturally hates everything that looks 
like a restraint upon it, and it is apt to fancy itself under 
a sort of confinement when the sight is pent up in a 
narrow compass." In patterns, trimmings, and decorations 
of all kinds the design should be so marked as to be 
readily caught at a glance, otherwise the effect will be 
confusing and void of pleasure. And again, the design 



169 

of detail ornamentation should be similar to that of the 
whole. This is the simple, beautiful method of nature. 
From very plain forms the most elaborate are produced 
by a sort of progression. 

We now turn to the interesting but somewhat con- 
fusing subject of color; and, although we have already 
stated most of the important principles which bear on 
colors, we will here go into details which are of great 
interest in connection with dress, and which must be 
known before one can dress with a reasonable degree of 
taste and effectiveness. 

Now we may preface the discussion by saying that, 
in choosing a controlling color for the dress, the great 
question is, does it suit the complexion and hair? In 
other words, is it such a contrast as will tend to idealize 
or perfect the appearance of the face and head ? 

Everyone must have noticed how contiguous colors 
heighten or diminish the effects of each other, as well 
as their effects on the eye as it passes alternately from 
the one to the other. "A curved line," says Ruskin, "is 
set off by a straight one, a massy form by a slight one, 
and so on ; and in all good work nearly double the value 
which any given color would have uncombined is given 
to each by contrast." Ruskin here speaks in reference 
to painting, but arranging the colors in dress does not 
differ in any way from arranging them in a picture, so 
far as the effects are concerned. Certainly everyone 
should study the effects of contrast, harmonious and in- 
harmonious, of colors and forms, too, even if it were for 
no other purpose than to become proficient in dressing, 
an art which often shapes the fortune, the happiness, the 



170 

whole destiny for life. There is some interest taken in 
this subject, if we may judge from what one of Dr. 
Holmes' characters, in The Philosopher at the Breakfast 
Table ', says. "I remember," says she, "the time when I 
thought more about the shade of color in a ribbon, 
whether it matched my complexion or not, than I did 
about my spiritual interest in this world or the next." 
Nor is the present generation less anxious to appear 
well than the last ; most people, we think, will agree with 
us in saying that it is precisely the reverse. We must 
confess, however, that there is a plentiful lack of taste 
displayed in this matter, as anybody can readily see by 
passing along a fashionable promenade. But it is only 
strange that so many appear passably beautiful when we 
begin to discover how little they are guided by rules in 
their getting up. The will to be beautiful is abroad, but 
it needs more intelligence to guide it. People are willing 
enough to make themselves attractive in appearance, for 
they know that prepossessions are proverbially hard to 
eradicate. On this point Addison justly remarks, "A 
man's appearance falls within the censure of everyone 
that sees him ; his parts and learning very few are judges 
of, and even upon these few they cannot at first be well 
intruded." But this theme has been fully treated of 
already. 

Now to any color we may oppose as many contrasts 
as there are colors, but only one is an harmonious con- 
trast. What is known as the accidental or complimentary 
color is the one that matches most artistically with any 
other. This important fact should be known by every- 
body, for a complete knowledge of it alone is almost 



171 

sufficient to make one an expert in dressing, so far as 
colors are concerned. 

The way to determine the complimentary or harmoni- 
ously contrasting color is experimental but extremely 
simple. Put a red wafer on a sheet of white paper and 
look at it steadfastly for a moment in a bright light; 
then instantly turn the eyes on another part of the paper 
and the wafer will still be seen, but instead of being red 
it will be green, which is the complimentary of the 
former. In this way it will be found that if the wafer is 
yellow the phantom one will be violet, if blue it will be 
orange, if olive it will be dark orange, if russet it will be 
dark green, if citrine it will be dark purple, if black it 
will be white, and contrariwise. Here we have the 
fundamental law of all harmony in the contrast of colors. 
It is based on the nature of light and of vision, and is 
in no manner conventional. 

Says Goethe, " The eye seeks for a colorless space 
next every hue in order to produce the complimentary 
hue upon it," and that hue is the right one to place there 
in arranging the colors in dress as well as in a painting 
and everything else. In fact, this vue-sentiment or sensi- 
bility of sight is the taste-guide of nearly everybody, 
including dressmakers and milliners, but it is a reliable 
guide in only a small percentage of people — only in 
people of genius. Great painters, or rather great color- 
ists like Titian and Correggio, are rare — the art is so 
difficult— and it is just as hard to properly arrange 
colored fabrics as the bare paints. Anyone to dress well 
requires some genius and much culture and knowledge. 

Before going into the subject of the practical application 



172 

of colors for the improvement of the appearance, we will 
state some important and interesting facts in regard to 
them individually. 

Red, which is generally regarded as including all other 
colors, is gay and dignified when deep, and active and 
sweet, so to speak, when of a light shade. The fiery 
shade, which is known as scarlet, is too violently cheer- 
ful and exciting to be agreeable, but it is the favorite 
color of children, uncultured persons, and savages, and 
a very deep shade, or what is known as " cardinal red," 
because it is favored by the church, is very disturbing, 
but when slightly attenuated in tint it is not unattractive. 
Red holds an intermediate position to the other primaries, 
as, also, to black and white, light and shade, and to cold 
and warm qualities. It is symbolic of love — it is Cupid's 
color. The rosy band of the little archer is a favorite 
theme of poets, and it is not unknown or despised by 
people in general. 

Blue is a cold color, and yields the impression of 
shade. The character of its effects partakes of both 
excitement and repose. Pure and retiring, as in the 
vault of heaven, we love to contemplate it — the sight of 
it fascinates the eye. It is symbolic of modesty, good- 
ness, and faith. Painters have always represented the 
Virgin Mary in a blue mantle. When we remember its 
symbolic meaning, there is sense in the expression " blue 
blood," as applied to persons of good character and of 
respectable family — blood having reference to the lineage. 

Yellow is a warm, serene, and softly exciting color. 
It is agreeable in dress and all kinds of drapery. The 
Chinese esteem it the most beautiful of all colors, and it 



173 

is to them symbolic of faith, just as it was in Christian 
symbolism. To us it denotes inconstancy and treason. 
Judas is represented in garments of this color. But 
in spite of all this we must acknowledge that it is the 
physicians' color. Wherever a yellow flag is seen it 
informs us of the prevalence of disease. 

Orange is similar in nature to yellow, but in a superior 
degree ; it is more energetic and splendid. It is symbolic 
of indissoluble marriage, and hence its use on bridal 
occasions. The wife of the flamen dialis or priest of 
Jupiter wore a veil of this hue, and her divorce was 
strictly prohibited, which was the origin of the custom. 
Virgil gives Helen a saffron-colored nuptial veil, and the 
Roman brides wore long veils of this color on the wed- 
ding-day. 

The character of violet is cool and retiring, but some- 
what active and enlivening. People advanced in life find 
this a most appropriate color. It unites the symbolic 
signification of purple, which is the love of truth, and 
that of hyacinth, which is the truth of love, 

Purple is mild but cheerful, partaking of the nature of 
both red and blue, but mostly of the former. A 
favorite from the earliest times, purple was adopted by 
the Roman emperors as the imperial color and such it 
still continues to be. It is very much worn by ladies in 
England, as observing travelers rarely fail to notice. 

Hyacinth, which becomes lilac when attenuated, is a 
lively color, but it does not excite a feeling of gladness. 

Green is of a mild character and the most agreeable 
and refreshing of all colors. It is Nature's favorite, the 
color of her spring robes, and it symbolizes youth, hope, 



174 

and gladness. Greens are esteemed warm or cold 
according to the predominance of yellow or blue in the 
tint. 

White, the favorite color of ladies, is cool and cheerful, 
and it is symbolic of purity and innocence. From the 
Magi and the Druids down to the present time the priests 
of nearly all religions have approached their altars in 
vestments of white. It is in garments of snowy white- 
ness that we think of angels and other heavenly 
beings. 

Black, the favorite color of gentlemen, yields the im- 
pression of warmth and it is symbolic of grief. The 
view of it is depressing. It was worn by the Romans to 
indicate mourning, and the custom was copied by the 
Christians, although strongly opposed by the great lights 
of the church. Thus, in the course of a powerful sermon 
(De Consolat. Mort), St. Augustine demands: "Why 
should we disfigure ourselves with black, unless we 
would imitate unbelieving nations?" No very satis- 
factory reason can be given save that it is well to thus give 
the world an appropriate form of ocular evidence of the 
state of our feelings. It does add a little, perhaps, to our 
sense of sorrow, it is at any rate congruous with it, but 
we may doubt whether it is always worn with sincerity. 
Were it not that it is universally taken to indicate a 
sentiment so sacred and tender as that of love for the 
dead, we should speak against it on the score of being a 
voluntary disfiguration. It is possible to dress in a 
sombre enough fashion without going to the extreme of 
unbroken blackness. Children and those not of the 
immediate circle of the deceased should not be victimized 



175 

by any such custom. In them it is meaningless ostenta- 
tion. Violet was formerly regarded as quite as much a 
mortuary color as black, and the Roman church used 
them indiscriminately while fasting and mourning. 

We need not dwell on browns and grays or on the 
tertiary colors — citrine (yellow — red-gray), russet (red — 
violet-gray), and olive (blue — green-gray) for they more 
or less resemble one or other of the colors spoken of. 

Of beauty of colors Burke says : — " First, the colors of 
beautiful objects must not be dusky or muddy, but clear 
and fair. Secondly, they must not be of the strong kind. 
Those which seem most appropriate to beauty are the 
milder of every sort, light greens, soft blues, weak whites, 
pink reds, and violets. Thirdly, if the colors be strong 
and vivid they are always diversified and the object is 
never of one strong color; there are almost always 
such a number of them (as in variegated flowers) that 
the strength and glariness of each is considerably abated." 
This statement is so clear and to the point that it is un- 
necessary for us to add to it. 

Colors appear very different at night, the artificial light 
not being strong enough to bring out all the shades of 
them as seen by day, and also being yellowish it con- 
siderably changes several of them. In a dim but pure 
light it is often possible to bring out the natural tints by 
placing them on a contrasting ground. Light shades of 
color, as a rule, are proper at night, because they can bear 
a little darkening without detriment. The extent of 
actual change colors undergo in artificial light depends 
principally on the amount of yellow in the tint of the 
latter. However, white is softened and rather improved ; 



176 

black sustains little injury except in the case of blue- 
black, which appears greenish ; grays and browns appear 
darker and duller as a rule; reds assume a tint of orange ; 
blues seem greenish; yellows are deepened; oranges be- 
come more yellowish ; greens are brightened ; violet as- 
sumes something of a citrine tint; purple changes to 
reddish-brown ; hyacinth becomes greenish, and citrine, 
russet, and olive are more yellowish in tint. 

Another noticeable effect of artificial light is the depth 
it gives to shadows. This affords assistance in obtaining 
the splendid effects of light and shade which should be 
well considered in arranging the costume. No matter is 
more neglected than this and few are more worthy 
of attention. It should not be slighted. If drapery is 
perfectly flat, free from foldings, it is wanting in an im- 
portant source of beauty and power, if they are properly 
arranged. 

The material has a modifying effect on the color. 
Gauzy, napped, grained, or velvety fabrics absorb the 
light more or less, which gives them a soft, rich aspect, 
and dulls and deepens the hue; and smooth, glossy 
goods reflect the light, which makes them appear clear 
and lively and lighter in tint. The former are as a rule 
the most becoming to blondes and the latter to brunettes. 

Placed in juxtaposition, the effect of yellow and blue 
is agreeable like that of green; of blue and red, startling 
like violet; of yellow and red, exciting; of orange and 
violet, slightly exciting; of yellow and green, cheering; 
of blue and green, repellent; and of yellow and orange, 
orange and red, blue and violet, violet and red, rather 
pleasant. Of course it is unnecessary to say that none 



177 

of these are harmonious contrasts. If beauty — pure and 
simple — is the aim, they are not admissible ; but their 
more or less startling or piquant effect is often desirable 
in dress, and the best artists at times resort to inharmo- 
nious coloring in order to produce striking pictures. 
Then, too, in painting or in dress as well as in music, a 
certain amount of discord acts as a set off to combina- 
tions of sweet harmonies. 

In the use of colors, if a powerful impression is de- 
sired, yellow, orange, and red should be chosen, and 
little violet and blue, and still less green should be used. 
On the other hand, if a mild effect is aimed at, blue, 
violet, and light red are in order, but a moderate 
addition of yellow and orange and much green are 
admissible. 

It is related of a witty Frenchman, " II pretendoit que 
son ton de conversation avec madame etoit change 
depuis qu'elle avoit change en cremoisi le meuble de son 
cabinet, que etoit bleu." Now, if the change in the color 
of the furniture had the effect of changing the style of 
the gentleman we think had madame changed her 
colors, the effect would have been much more marked. 
Had she placed something red conspicuously before his 
eyes it is likely that he would have become more lively 
and voluble, and had she placed blue in the same posi- 
tion it is likely that he would have become more gentle 
and quiet. So powerful and real are the effects of differ- 
ent colors that they are utilized in the treatment of 
mental affections. 

Dress is eminently capable of sentiment in hue, cut, 
foldings, light and shade, and so on, and a costume 



i 7 8 

without sentiment is just as uninteresting as a face or 
character without it. 

People of an active temperament prefer striking colors, 
but culture tends to subdue the taste. A lively people, 
like the French, like intense colors ; a sedate people, 
like the English or Germans, like subdued tints ; and a 
dignified, haughty people, like the Spaniards or Italians, 
favor positive colors, 

The pattern and degree of harmony observed in the 
disposal of colors in the dress, and also the character of 
the colors themselves, speak eloquently of the person's 
taste and knowledge. In no other way can we get a 
better idea of character; in no other way does the 
degree of refinement become so patent. Every one of 
us is a Sartor Resartus ; every one of us reveals our 
inner life in our clothes, and all else are interpreting 
Carlyles of various degrees of insight. 

We will now proceed to lay down some precepts 
which should be carefully considered by all who aspire 
to dress well. 

Unity of color in dress imparts an air of dignity and 
refinement, but if it is entirely unbroken, the monotony 
is fatiguing to the eye. A person all black or blue is 
exceedingly unattractive. The relief of a collar and 
scarf, even, is not enough. Some contrast should be 
found in the head-dress or in the trimming, or both. 
Different shades of the same color can often be blended 
to excellent advantage. 

Very showy, fanciful colors, just as a profusion of 
meretricious jewelry, are apt to appear tawdry and give 
the person a vain, ridiculous air, particularly if not young. 



179 

Simplicity is always the aim of une femme distingue. A 
maze of colors should be avoided, " that way madness 
lies." Says Sir Joshua Reynolds, " Nothing will con- 
tribute more to destroy repose than profusion of what- 
ever kind, whether it consists in the multiplicity of 
objects or the variety and brightness of colors. On the 
other hand a work without ornament, instead of sim- 
plicity to which it makes pretension, has rather the ap- 
pearance of poverty." 

Large-sized persons who want to appear smaller than 
they are, should prefer subdued and almost uniform 
color in their dress. Dark colors are here more effect- 
ive than light ones. 

Any showy color about the upper portion of a tall 
figure makes the height appear greater. The reason of 
this is simply because the eye is led to the elevated part, 
whereas if there had been nothing there to specially at- 
tract attention, it is very likely it would repose on a 
point lower down, and so forget the person's height. 

A shortening effect is produced by putting the color 
that is most likely to catch the eye low down, and on 
the other hand, a lengthening effect is produced by 
putting the color which is most likely to attract upper- 
most. This ruse can often be practiced in order to direct 
the attention from any part we do not desire to be 
noticed. 

In his work, De Arte Amandi, the celebrated Latin 
poet Ovid says, " Black suits the fair. It became Bri- 
seis. She was dressed in black when she was carried 
off. White suits the dark. It added to thy charms, 
Andromeda, when clothed in white thou didst traverse 



i8o 

the isle of Seriphos." This still continues to be the 
popular opinion in regard to these matters, and in his 
interesting work on Art iit Ornament and Dress (1876), 
Ch. Blanc declares that it is right. Now it is certainly- 
true that these are the proper artistic contrasts, but we 
believe they are not the most improving in the great 
majority of cases. Black and allied colors brighten the 
complexion of brunettes to a desirable degree generally, 
but they are apt to give blondes a blanched appearance. 
On the other hand, white and allied colors deepen the 
complexion of blondes to a degree that it is improving 
mostly, but they frequently emphasize too much the 
complexion of brunettes. On this same principle, attenu- 
ated tints — that is, colors reduced by the addition of 
white — are most improving to blondes and pale brunettes. 

Of the pure colors, blue is most suitable for blondes, 
and red and yellow for brunettes; but a deep blue may 
be very becoming to the latter, and pinks and light yel- 
low to the former. 

Violet, blue purple, which is properly hyacinth, light 
green, and delicate orange, are most suitable for blondes, 
and red purple, or plum, and orange, for brunettes. 

People of red hair and florid complexion find green 
the most becoming color ; but it really deepens the rosy 
hue. In fact, there is no color tends so much to redden 
its surroundings as does green, for red is its compli- 
mentary color. 

Light shades of citrine, russet, and olive are the most 
suitable for blondes, and the same statement holds good 
in regard to browns and grays; but these neutral tints 
are often equally becoming to both blondes and bru- 
nettes. 



181 

When the complexion is dull, warm, lively colors are 
' desirable, and when it is brilliant, cold, serene colors are 
the best. 

From the fact that a great many, indeed, the majority 
of people, are neither blondes nor brunettes, but a mix- 
ture, the tint of which is somewhat peculiar to each, 
there is plenty of room for judgment in the selection of 
colors. But the foregoing hints will serve as a guide in 
most cases. We believe, too, that they can be complied 
with throughout the vicissitudes of fashion, which is less 
imperious in regard to colors than form ; but if it comes 
to a question of sacrificing either looks or fashion, we 
would say do not hesitate a moment about offering up 
the latter. We have due respect for this capricious 
power, but we sincerely deprecate blind adherence to it. 
We would have people dress so that they will not feel 
ashamed to look at their pictures ten years hence, or 
fifty, for that matter. The wise are never led captive by 
any passing whim in dress, or in anything else. Persons 
like the ladies spoken of by Swift, in his satire, A Tale 
of a Tub, who " were ever at the top of the fashion and 
abhorred all that were below it but the breadth of a 
hair," must be sadly wanting in mind and contemptible 
indeed. 

Of course, the character and age of the person and 
also the occasion should be duly considered in dressing. 

Fresh, elastic, vivacious people can wear almost any- 
thing, however fanciful and showy; but those not so 
favored should be careful in their choice of costume. 

With advancing years the style of dress should grow 
plainer and the colors be correspondingly subdued. A 



182 

person far past the meridian of life appears ridiculous 
when ornamented with flowers which are becoming to 
the young, and the effect of splendid jewelry, which is 
becoming to the middle-aged, is almost as bad here as 
in the young. The incongruous is never beautiful. 

The preceding remarks are in all respects applicable 
to head-dress; but we will say a few words separately 
on the coiffure. 

Of course, the aim in arranging the hair should be to 
improve the beauty of the head and face. Fashion 
here, as elsewhere, often says, " No, let the hair be put 
up this way or that way, because it is attractive in itself." 
Attractive in itself! Well, it is not very often that the 
fashionable coiffure is very attractive. 

It may be laid down as a rule that in dressing the hair 
the natural relative proportion between the head and the 
rest of the figure should be maintained, only a slight 
deviation being admissible. This one precept covers 
the whole ground of hair-dressing, but the details of the 
art are not so easily stated. 

Says Ovid, " Never let your hair be in a state of dis- 
order; nothing pleases us so much as neatness." We 
wonder what Ovid would say, if he were alive, to see the 
frizzing, banging, and disheveling which goes to make 
up a presentable head to-day. However, his advice is 
excellent. Straggly or towy locks are never beautiful, 
whether they are the result of design or not. 

If the face is broad and full it is proper to have the 
coiffure rather high and moderately full; but if the face 
is long and thin it is most improving to have it pretty 
high and narrow. 






i83 

If the coiffure is rounded in front it lengthens the face, 
and if square it shortens it. 

If the forehead is very low it is better not to pile the 
hair high, or its size will dwarf the former into insig- 
nificance; and, again, it is better not to throw the hair 
up but slightly, for if raised in a high rim, a la Pompa- 
dour, it makes the forehead appear still smaller. In 
such cases the more careless the arrangement, perhaps, 
the better. Indeed, it may be laid down as an axiom of 
the art of the toilet, that if an artful device attracts at- 
tention it can be of no service to beauty, for its discovery 
leads the mind to inquire why it was resorted to, and 
the search is sure to bring to light what might otherwise 
have passed unnoticed. 

Dressing the hair full in front is most becoming to 
people of a concave style of face, and most unbecoming 
to people in whom it is of a convex shape. Thus, a 
person with a markedly celestial nose makes a mistake 
in throwing the hair back, and a person with a Roman 
or Jewish nose blunders quite as badly in having it en- 
croach on the forehead. 

A great mass of hair on the back portion of the head 
is disfiguring in most cases, but a moderate amount is 
allowable when the nose is very prominent. 

Ringlets make a round face appear more oval, and 
plain bands shorten it. 

Any fantastical arrangement of the hair about the face 
is very apt to give rise to an air of affectation, but some 
coquetry of style is becoming if the features are cramped 
or irregular. In this way it is possible to produce a 
certain magnificence in many ugly faces. 



1 84 

If the head and face are well shaped the plainer the hair 
is dressed the better. To be sure it may be made so plain 
as to be ungraceful, but such an extreme is unreasonable. 

In Venus de' Medici the hair is gathered into a knot on 
the crown and it is the most sensible and beautiful way 
of arranging it. The size and position of the knot should 
vary to suit the profile of the face, especially the nose. 

When the hair is very scanty it is proper perhaps to 
employ a little of the false brand, but otherwise it should 
be entirely let alone. It is bad taste that leads people to 
desire a great mound of hair, and yet it has been more 
or less prevalent from the earliest times. A false addition 
was extensively used by the Roman ladies. When 
Caesar conquered Gaul (France), we are told that he had 
the beautiful tresses of his female captives cut off and 
sent to Rome for sale. Plaits, switches, and chignons 
are evidently not of recent origin. 

As for wigs, when the hair is almost or entirely absent, 
of course it is proper to use them ; and there is one rule 
in regard to them which should never be overlooked, viz., 
let the color of the wig match with the color of the eye- 
brows and the hue of the complexion. Thus, if the 
eyebrows are gray or almost hairless and the face faded 
a gray wig is the right kind to choose. To be sure it is 
sometimes possible to make the hue of the brows and 
face harmonize with any color in a wig by using dyes 
and paints. 

The ancient Egyptians shaved off their hair and wore 
wigs so that when they chose they could more readily 
cool their heads. When bald the Greeks and Romans 
occasionally wore them, but they were little used for a 






1 85 

long time. It was about the middle of the last century, 
during the reign of Louis XIV V that wig-wearing began 
in earnest. Nor were the wigs of that period similar to the 
ordinary ones we are in the habit of seeing ; they were 
sometimes immense, and those of the ladies were of very 
intricate design. These last partook of the nature of the 
modern chignon and have been described as " edifices of 
brass wire, ribbons, hair, and all sorts of tawdry rubbish, 
more than two feet high, making their wearers' heads 
seem in the middle of their bodies. If they moved, the 
edifice trembled and the inconvenience was extreme/' 
(St. Simon.) They were worn by everybody who made 
any pretense to the name of lady or gentleman. This 
outrageously senseless custom was introduced by the 
effeminate French noblesse whose heads often required 
"thatching," as Shakspeare has it, and who had nothing 
more important to do than practice as amateur perruquiers. 

Wigs are still worn as part of the insignia of certain 
offices; for instance, that of judge of the courts of Brit- 
ain; but we believe they are entirely disused in this 
country. 

It is right that we should say a few words about 
shoes. There is an Oriental adage to the effect that if 
the hat, gloves, and shoes, the covering of the three ex- 
tremities of the body, are correct, the whole person is 
genteel. 

Now, the proportionate length of the foot, in all an- 
tique classic statues, according to Winckelmann, is one- 
sixth the stature, and Albrecht Diirer holds this to be 
the proper length. 

The popular Chinese notion that the smaller the foot 



1 86 

the greater its beauty, is an error, and the reason which 
led to it we are unable to divine. 

A shoe should fit neatly and be comfortable. The toe 
should not be narrow, for if it is it will injure the foot 
and preclude the possibility of a graceful gait. 

In walking we set down the heel first, and then spring 
on the balls of the great and little toes, inclining forward 
gradually on the toes which spread. From this it is 
evident that the shoe should be somewhat broader 
toward the toe than the foot requires while it is at rest. 

Those who wear shoes which are broad across the 
toes never have corns or bunions. 

The sandals of the ancients allowed the toes and 
joints of the entire foot to spread to any extent, and the 
result was that beautiful feet were the rule among them, 
while with us they are but occasionally met with. In a 
paper before us, as we write, we see it stated by a noted 
lady of expansive form and reforming proclivities, that 
"not one decent pair of toes among five thousand women 
can be found to-day"; a statement which might well 
startle us, if it were not that the writer is in the habit of 
exaggerating a little when condemning what she thinks 
wrong in her sisters, particularly the physically con- 
tracted ones. 

Turning out greatly at the toes, which is so common 
and disfiguring too, is one of the entailments of narrow- 
toed shoes. It is said that this set of the foot is so 
characteristic of our people as to enable the Indian to 
recognize where they have been by their tracks. Women 
naturally turn out more than men. 

It is very hard to understand why people will persist 



i8 7 

in wearing tight-fitting shoes, even that they in them- 
selves seem beautiful, for suffering is inevitable, and no- 
body can walk gracefully whose feet are paining. The 
effect, too, on the general health is very bad, and local 
disfiguration will sooner or later follow. 

High heels to shoes are of modern origin; but what 
we recognize as such are as nothing when compared 
with those fashionable about the middle of the last cen- 
tury. In some of the paintings of that period, for in- 
stance, those of Gainsborough, they are represented as 
high as five inches. 

Now, high heels are not only unnatural, but ugly and 
injurious to health. Nature does not warrant walking 
on the toes, and we cannot violate hfer teachings with 
impunity. Human digitigrades are great patrons of 
chiropodists, and they have often occasion to call on 
physicians famous for their ability to cure spinal and 
nervous diseases. Oriental people wear no heels on 
their shoes, and yet they are very erect and graceful in 
their carriage. 



CONCLUSION. 



We have now touched on every important point bear- 
ing on personal appearance and its improvement, and 
also the art of character-reading. Perhaps we have 
omitted topics worthy of notice, and perhaps, too, we 
have not handled those noticed in a way acceptable to 
all, but we plead that the novelty of the idea of our book 
has left us without one to guide us, and, also, that we 
have done our best to do justice to every subject. And 
here we may state that our facts are drawn from observa- 
tions and reflections noted down during the last seven 
years, and, also, from a careful examination of the 
opinions of others in all ages, which we have been led 
to know through the composition of a laborious Work 
on matters somewhat related. 

In all that we have said our aim has been to be clear 
and practical. We have spoken without any reservation 
save that suggested by honest propriety, and without 
any other purpose than to make everything said intelli- 
gible, interesting, and useful to everybody. 

From repeatedly indulging in digressions, or some- 
thing much akin, we have run the risk of being incoherent 
at times, but we have tried all along to reason, to develop 
and teach principles rather than throw together, without 
system, a mass of disjointed details. 

(188) 



189 

Addressing ourselves as to people of common sense, 
we have not seen fit to be childish in the use of language 
or to be burdensomely minute in regard to common-place 
matters. We think, however, that our style has been 
sufficiently simple and full to suit anyone of ordinary 
capacity and intelligence. But we may remark that we 
have been dealing with themes which cannot by any 
manner of treatment be made understandable without 
some mental effort on the part of the reader. Not many 
if any subjects more intricate could engage the attention. 
We have been discussing that master-mould of nature, 
that wonderful microcosm, illustrated in each of us, from 
the conjoined standpoints of artist, physician, and 
psychologist. Chapters like the one just concluded will 
bear frequent reading, if we may judge from the amount 
of thought and research required to produce them. 
However, we would repeat that it is our belief that 
everyone can easily enough appropriate and utilize our 
ideas. Nor will these be found meagre, we hope. The 
volume might have been increased to twice its size with- 
out conveying any more information. 

With each of our readers we part with the assurance 
that we have done all in our power to bring within the 
reach of all the divine possession of beauty, or at least 
a knowledge of what it is and how it may be obtained. 



INDEX. 



Absalom, 142, 153. 
Accidental color, 170. 
Achromatopia, 95. 
Acid, tannic, 100. 
Acidity of stomach, 158. 
Acne, 134, 135-137. 
Activity and growth, 58, 65. 
Adam, 39. 
Adam's apple, 70. 
Addison, 21, 93, 164, 168, 170. 
Adonis, 31, 70. 
iEneas, 112. 
.^Esculapius, 53, 150. 
Affections and the chin, 107. 
Age, appearance of, 121. 

and baldness, 144. 

and beauty, 44. 

and dress, 181. 

and grayness, 145, 

and marriage, 52. 

Agreement, 67. 

Alexander the Great, 61, 147, 159. 

Alison, 20. 

Alum, 119. 

Amalgam, 120, 121. 

Ambrose, St., 22. 

Ammonia, 93, 100, 133, 143, 144, 148, 158, 

159. 

Amulet against wrinkles, 125. 

Anacreon, 85. 

Andromeda, 179. 

Angelo, Michael, 22, 27, 32. 

Aniline, 148. 

Animal food, 116. 

Antony, Mark, 43. 

Aphrodite, 24. 

Apollo, 17; 31, 48, 165. 

Belvidere, 31-34, 150. 

Aristotle, 7, 11, 14, 19. 
Armstrong, 125, 153. 
Arsenic, 134, 147, 148. 
Art and Lycurgus, 48. 

most precious relic of, 24. 

of dressing, 169. 

the cosmetic, 104. 

— the soul of, 5. 

Artificial light and colors, 175, 176. 

teeth, 121. 

Artists, cosmetic, 104. 

end and aim of, 5. 

Aspasia, 39, 40, 43. 

Association of ideas, 20, 129, 151, 164. 



Athalie, 44. 

Atropia, 91. 

Attire of the sexes, 162-165. 

Audran, 27, 33, 107. 

Augustine, St., 20, 22, 174. 

Bacon, 9, 10, 37, 56, 82, 145, 157. 

Bandoline, a, 144. 

Baldness, 144. 

Bardinelli, 24. 

Bars in dress, 168. 

Basil, St., 22. 

Bay rum, 133. 

Beard, the, 149-152. 

Beauty and age, 44. 

and health, 44-47. 

and love, 29. 

and rouge, 102. 

and the beard, 151, 152. 

and the complexion, 132. 

and the sex, 37-42. 

and youth, 43, 44. 

definitions of, n. 

female, 23-30. 

general taste for, 6, 7. 

goddess of, 23. 

Greek love of, 23. 

ideal of all, 22. 

line of, 12, 13. 

not confined to face, 20. 

not conventional, 12. 

object of, 6. 

of form, 12. 

of man, 36. 

of the face, 21, 75. 

personal, 7. 

scope and power of, 5. 

size and, 29. 

the sense of, 19 20. 

Beautiful, what is, 22. 

feet, 186. 

Bichat, 127. 

Bilious temperament, 76. 
Black, 174, 179. 
Black eyes, 90. 
Blackheads, 134, 135, 136. 
Blanc, Charles, 180. 
Bleaching, hair, 148. 
Blonde, the, 76, 179, 180. 
Blue, 172, 180. 

blood, 172. 

eyes, 90. 



(190) 



I9i 



Boils, i57- 
Bonaparte, 69. 
Bottle-nose, a"8. 
Bow-legs, 59- 
Breath, bad, 158. 

. ■ sweet, 158, i59- 

Braces, 60, 

Brain, the, 64-69, 82. 

Bridal occasions and orange, 173- 

Briseis, 179, 

Broussais, 44, iz6 - 

Browns, 175, x 8o. 

Bruce, 69. 

Brummel, Beau, 164. 

Brunette, the, 76, 179, l8 °- 

Burke, 14, *9, 2 9, 3°> 9 2 > *3*» r ^ m 

Burns, 13, 48, 84. 

Byron, n, 29, 34, 47, 54, 64, 7°, 9 ( 

Cachous, 158. 
Cadmia, 147. 
Csesar, 39, 144- 
Calisthenics, 61. 
Camper, 78. 
Cantharides, 143.* 
Carbolic acid, 136, i37- 
Carbonaceous food, 135, I 3°- 
Cardinal red, 172. 
Carlyle, 178. 
Carmine, 103, 111. 
Cascarilla powder, 103. 
Cassius, 63. 
Castellani, 73, 105. 
Castor oil, 143. 
Catechu, 119. 
Cato, 92. 

Celestial nose, 98. 
Celsus, 22, 65. 
Chalk, 119- J , B 

Character and dress, 178. 

definition of, 108. 

. reading of, 10. 

Charcoal, 119. 
Charles V., 151. 
Chaucer, 40, 43. 
Checks in dress, 168. 
Cheeks, the, 101-105. 
Chest, circumference of, 35- 
Children, mortality of, 51, 5 2 - 
Chin, the, 106, 107. 
Chlorides, 148. 
Chlorine gas, 148. 
Chrysostom, St., 22. 
Cicero, 36, 58, 80. 
Citrine, 19, 175. l8 °- 
City and wrinkles, 125, 126. 
Clavi, 157. 
Cleanliness, 56, *33- 
Clement, St., 22. 
Cleomanes, 24. 
Cleopatra, 39, 4°, 43- 
Clothing, 56. 
Cloves, oil of, 120. 
Co-education of the sexes, 41. 



Coiffure, the, 75, 182-185. 
Colocynth, 136. 
Cold cream, in. 
Color, a deception, 18. 

and dress, 169-102. 

and fabric, 179- 

and human beauty, 37- 

and structure, 18, 19. 

_ its meaning, 18. 

of the beard, i5 2 - 

-of the eyebrows, 86. 

of the eyes, 90, 92. 

of the hair, 139, I 4i» x 4 2 - 

. of the nose, 99, 100. 

of the skin, 130- 

the imperial, 175. 

Color-blindness, 95, 9 6 - , 

Colors, artificial light and, 175,170- 

beauty of, 177. 

effects of, 177, *79- 

harmony of, 19. 

—how derived, 19. 

Combe, 69. 
Comedones, 135- 
Commander's wrinkle, 124. 
Comparison, 67. 
Complexion, the, 102, 129-137- 
Complimentary color, 170, I7 1 - 
Conclusion, the, 188, 189. 
Congestion of the eyes, 93. 
Conjunctiva, the, 88. 
Consanguinity and marriage, 51. 
Consciousness, 66. 
Contrast of colors, 169, 170. 
Cookery, 55- 
Cornea, the, 88. 
Corns, 157, l86 - 
Correggio 171- 
Corsage, the, 166, 167. 
Corsets, 26, 163. 
Cosmetic pastilles, 86. 
Cosmetics, 103, in. 
Costume of the sexes, 162-105. 
Country and wrinkles, 125, 120. 
Cousin, Victor, 22. 
Cowper, 55, I22 > I26 > r I3 i* 
Creation, Vestiges ot, 50. 
Creosote, 120. 
Crimping, 144. 
Cromwell, 69. 
Crookedness, 60. 
Crowding of the teeth, 117, «»• 
Culture and colors, 178. 
Cupid, i7 2 - 
Curling-irons, 144. 
Curling of the hair, 140. 
Cutting, hair, 140. 
dress, 165. 



Cuvier, 115. 
Cyril, St., 22. 
Cytherea (Venus), 

Dalton, 95. 
Dancing, 61. 



159- 



192 



Daphne, 166. 

Darwin, Mr., 72. 

Deformity and dress, 165. 

Degeneracy, 53. 

of city people, 126. 

of Americans, 78. 

Demosthenes, 69. 

Dentifrices, 119, 120. 

Dentine, 115 

Dentistry, 121. 

Depilatories, 148. 

Dermis, the, 130. 

Design of dress, 167, 168. 

Development of Dress-forms, 161. 

Diana, 27. 

Discoloration of lips, in 

Discolorations, removal of, 135, 154-156. 

Diseases and cosmetics, 103. 

as cosmetics, 127. 

of the eye, 93-96. 

of the skin, 134-137. 

— ; — — of the teeth, 117. 
Dissipation, 54. 
Doil, Cormac, 92. 
Dowry, the best, 48. 
Drapery and shadows, 176. 

and age, 181. 

Dress and beauty, 161-187. 

and character, 178. 

of the Greeks, 162. 

of the Romans, 162. 

sentiment in, 177, 178. 

Drunkard's nose, 99, 100. 
Dryden, 50, 73, 161, 162. 
Dumb-bells, 58, 60. 
Dumpy women, dress of, 166. 
Dunglison, Dr., 154. 
Diirer, Albrecht, 17, 185. 
Dyeing, hair, 146-148. 
Dyspepsia, 158. 

Ear, the, 71-74. 
Ear-rings, 73, 74. 
Early rising, 56. 

education, 60. 

Eating as an art, 54. 
Ecclesiasticus, 38, 57, 79. 
Education, early, 60. 

of Cleopatra, 39. 

of the sexes, 41, 42. 

Effects of colors, 177. 
Eliot, George, 41, 113. 
Elizabeth, Queen, 56. 
Emerson, 79. 
Emotions, 67. 

their expression, 49. 

Enamel, 115. 
Epidermis, 130. 
Erect posture, 59, 60. 
Eulogy on Venus, 28. 

on Apollo, 34. 

Eve, 39. 

Evolution and dress, 162. 

Exercise, 56-62. 



Exhibition, Centennial, 73. 
Expression, 37-39. 

and the complexion, 132. 

of the head, 70, 71. 

Extraction of the teeth, 120, 121. 

Eyebrows, the, 84-87. 

Eyelashes, the, 91. 

Eyes, the, 88-96'. 

circles beneath the, 122. 

Fabric and color, 176. 

Face and the head, 107. 

as a whole, 75-79. 

beauty of the, 21, 36. 

; — the, 16, 19, 26. 

Facial angle, 78, 79. 

Faculties of the mind, 66, 67. 

seat of mental, 68. 

■ intellectual, 81. 

False hair, 184. 

Falstaff, 62. 

Fancy, 67. 

Fards, 104. 

Farsightedness, 93, 94. 

Fashion, 181. 

Fashions, modern, 163. 

Fate, resisting, 125. 

Fatness, 62, 63, 77, 78. 

Fau and Knox, 21, 23, 61. 

Fear, effect of, 145. 

Feeling, 66. 

Female costume, 163. 

Filling of teeth, 120, 121. 

Fissuring of the lips, 111. 

Flathead Indians, 81, 83. 

Flaws, special personal, 153-160. 

Flesh-color, 132. 

Follicles of the hair, 131, 139. 

Food, amount required, 136. 

• animal and vegetable, 116. 

carbonaceous, 135, 136, 

nitrogenized, 135, 136. 

phosphatic, 136. 

proportions required, 136. 

Foot, the, 185. 

Forehead, the, 80-83. 

Form, beauty of, 12, 40, 102. 

Freckles, 130, 134, 135. 

Free-will, 81. 

Frizzing of the hair, 144. 

Gainsborough, 187. 

Galen, 8, 47. 

Galla, St.. 150. 

Galton, Mr., 50. 

Gibson, 26. 

Girdle of Venus, 46. 

Glands, perspiratory, 131. 

sebaceous, 131. 

Glasses, 94, 95. 

Gloves, the, 167. 

Glycerine, 100, 133, 134, 136, 137, i 43j 147 . 

Lrcetne, 19, 142, 171. 

Gold, 120, 121, 



193 



Golden cut, the, 15. 
Grace, 17, 18, 61. 
Graces, the three, 76. 
Grayness of the hair, 145. 
Grays, 175, 180. 
Grecian nose, 98. 
Greeks, their dress, 162. 

their love of beauty, 23. 

Green, 19, 173, 174, 180. 
Green lenses, 95. 
Gregory, St., 22. 
Growth and activity, 58, 65. 
Gum tragacanth, 144. 
Gutta-percha, 120. 
Gymnastics, 61, 94. 

Hadrian, 76. 

Hairs, color of the, 139. 

of the eyebrows, 85. 

stain for light, 85. 

the, 138-152. 

Hammond, Dr., 35. 
Harelip, 112. 
Harless, 16. 
Harmony, 19. 
Hay, Mr., 15. 
Hazel eyes, 90. 
Head and face, 107. 

the, 64-69. 

Health and beauty, 44-49. 

and exercise, 59. 

and wisdom, 9. 

definition of, 44, 45. 

Heat and the hair, 140. 
Hebe, 44, 104. 
Heels, high, 187. 
Helen, 40, 43, 173. 
Hemans, Mrs., 5, 132. 
Henry II., 43. 

Prince, 62. 

Heraclides, 47. 
Hereditary resemblance, 50. 
Hindoos' love of beauty, 29, 30. 
Hippocrates, 62. 
Hibernation, 45. 
Hogarth, 12, 13, 19. 
Holmes, Dr., 38, 108, 170. 
Homer, 23, 46, 48, 89, 104. 
Hordeoli, 157, 158. 
Horizontal lines, 167. 
Hyacinth, 173, 180. 
Hyacinthus, 124. 
Hydrogen, 148. 
Hygeia, 43, 47. 
Hygrometer, hair, 140. 

Idea, 67. 

Imaginary troubles, 125. 

Imagination, 67. 

and disease, 155, 157, 158. 

Imaginative faculties, 81. 

Indolence, 54, 65. 

Industry, 66. 

Inharmonious contrasts, 176, 177. 



Inheritance, 50, 62. 
Inquisitive nose, 98. 
Insects, bites of, 137. 
Intellect, 67, 80. 

and facial angle, 78. 

greatest effort of, 116. 

Intemperance, 99, 100. 

Invigoration of the hair, 143, 144. 

Iodine, 156. 

Iron, 100, 136, 146. 

Irregular teeth, 117. 

Jaw, the, ic6. 

Jeffrey, 20. 

Jerome, St., 22. 

Jesus, 22. 

Jewish nose, 98. 

Jews, health and longevity of, 51. 

Jezabel, 44. 

John, St., 150. 

Jove, 23, 46, 173. 

Judas, 173. 

Judith, 40, 57. 

Julius II., Pope, 32. 

Juno, 24, 45, 89, H2. 

Justin, St., 22. 

Juvenal, 164. 



Kissing, 112. 

the beard, 

Knowledge, 67. 
Knox, 69. 



[49. 



Lacing, tight, 35. 

Laocoon youths, 107. 

Laudanum, 120. 

Laura, 29. 

Lavater, 79, 97. 

Lavender, 133. 

Lead, 147. 

Leanness, 62, 63, 77, 78. 

L'Lnclos, Ninon de, 44. 

Lens, how to test a, 95. 

Liebriech, 95. 

Lilac, 173. 

Lily-white, 103. 

Limavady, Maid of, 125. 

Lime, 117, 139. 

Line of beauty, 12, 13. 

Lines and wrinkles, 122-128. 

Lips, the, 108-113. 

Litharge, 148. 

Locke, 61, 62. 

Longfellow, 9, 41. 

Looks, reforming the, 128. 

Louis XIV., 43, 185. 

Love and beauty, 29, 41. 

signs of, 107. 

Lucretia, 40, 165. 
Lungs and the voice, 35. 
Luther, 69. 
Luxury, 54. 
Lycurgus, 48, 149. 



194 



Madonna, 76, 172. 
Magnesia, 111, 119, 158. 
Maintenon, Madame de, 43. 
Male costume, 163. 
Man, beauty of, 13. 

compared with women, 33, 34. 

height of, 35. 

his costume, 163. 

subject to natural laws, 8. 

perfectibility of, 56. 

weight of, 35. 

Marguerite de Valois, 163. 
Marie Antoinette, 145. 
Marriage and age, 52. 

and consanguinity, 51. 

Marriages, causes of unhappy, 42. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, 145. 

Mary, Virgin, 76, 172. 

Matrimony and the complexion, 141. 

Mayo, 151. 

Medicine, god of, 150. 

father of, 62. 

father of American, 12. 

■ object of, 47. 

Rome's legacy to, 22. 

Melancholy nose, 98. 

Memory, 67, 72. 

Mental affections and colors, 177. 

temperament, 76. 

Menu, Institutes of, 30. 
Mercury, 134. 
Milton, 23, 39, 69. 
Mind and disease, 154. 

and matter, 9, 69. 

■ and the skull, 82, 83. 

conduct of the, 124, 125. 

nature of, 65-67. 

Minerva, 23, 24, 27, 90. 
Montague, Lady, 20. 
Montorsoli, Angelo da, 32. 
Moore, 37, 70, 85, 91, 101, 106. " 
Morning, beauties of the, 56. 
Mortality, infantile, 51, 52. 
Mothers' marks, 154-156. 
Motion and grace, 17, 18, 61. 

of the ears, 72. 

of the eyes, 92, 

Mourning, signs of, 149, 174. 
Mouth, the, 108-111, 
Muriatic acid, 135. 
Mustache, the, 151, 152. 
Myrrh, 119, 120. 



Naevi, 154-156. 
Naiis, the, 159, 160. 
Names, female, 30. 
Napoleon, 32, 98. 
Near-sightedness, 93, 94. 
Neck, dress of, 166. 
-the, 70, 71. 



Neptune, 90. 
Nerves, 65. 
Newton, 116. 



Nitric acid, 155, 156. 
Nitrogenized food, 135, 136. 
Nose, the, 97-100. 
Nut-galls, 146. 
Nux vomica, 100, 136. 

Oaths and the beard, 149. 

Oblique lines, 167. 

Oblong faces, 76, 78. 

Oil for the hair, 143. 

Olive, 19, 175, 180. 

Opium, 91, 93. 

Orange, 19, 173, 180. 

Ornament, the beard as an, 149. 

Ovate faces, 76, 78. 

Ovid, 179, 182. 

Oxalic acid, 148. 

Ox eyes, 89. 

Padding, 166. 

Pain, 45. 

Painting, 102-105, *3 2 > *33' 

Papering, hair, 144. 

Papillae, 130, 139. 

Pare, Ambrose, 118. 

Parentage, responsibilities of, 50, 51. 

Paris, 24, 43. 

Passions, 67. 

Pastilles, cosmetic, 86. 

Paul, St., 7, 138. 

Paula Barbata, St., 150. 

Pearl-powder, 103. 

Penelope, 23. 

Pepper, 111. 

Perceptive faculties, 81. 

Perfectibility of man, 8, 9. 

Pericles, 39, 43. 

Permanent teeth, 115. 

Perpendicular lines, 167. 

Person, special flaws of the, 153-160. 

Personal charms and dress, 162. 

Perspiration, odor of, 159. 

Perspiratory glands, 131. 

Peter, St., 32. 

Petrarch, 29. 

Phenol sodique, 119. 

Phidias, 48. 

Phosphatic food, 136. 

Phrenology, 67-69. 

Physicians' bones, 102. 

color, 173. 

Physiognomy, 10, 38, 79. 

Piercing of the ears, 74. 

Pierre, St., 42, no, 128. 

Pimples, 134, 135-137. 

Plaiting hair, 144. 

Plato, 11, 14, 15, 20, 22, 36, 42, 54, 150. 

Pliny, 72, 115. 

Plutarch, 8, 36, 39, 59, 112, 116, 129, 149. 

Poets, their inspiration, 29. 

Poisoning from hair-dyes, 147. 

Poitiers, Diana de, 43. 

Pompadour, 185. 



195 



Pope, 75, i3 8 - 

Portia, 165. 

Potash, 63, 119, 133, *4 8 , I 59- 

Powder for the face, 103. 

for the hair, 144. 

Powers, 26. 
Precocity, 77. 
Prepossessions, 170. 
Priests, vestments of, 174. 
Primary colors, 19. 
Proportion, i4 _I 7- 

and dress, 165. 

Psyche, 141. 
Pupil, the, 88. 

size of the, 91. 

Purple, 173, 180. 
Pyriform faces, 76, 78. 
Pyrrhus, 116. 
Pythagoras, 124. 
Python, 32. 

Quick-lime, 148. 

Race and beauty, 132. 

and the jaw, 106. 

Racine, 44. 
Raphael, 22. 
Recamier, Madame, 44. 
•Red, 172, 180. 

. hair, 142. 

Red-haired people, 142, 180. 

Reflective faculties, 81. 

Reflex-action, 66. 

Reform costume, 164. 

Regimen, 53-57- 

Renewal of the hair, 141. 

Restoratives, hair, 147. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 14, 19, 66, 179. 

Rice powder, 103. 

Richard III., 61. 

Riding-habits, 164. 

Ringlets, 183. 

Ringworm, 137. 

Roma, 112. 

Roman brides, 173. 

nose, 98. 

Romans, their dress, 162. 

their hair, 149. 

- their love of beauty, 23. 

Rosemary, 133, 143. 
Rosewater, 93, 147. 
Rouge, 102, 103. 
Round faces, 76, 78. 
Rush, Dr., 12, 71, 81. 
Ruskin, 6, 12, 18, 20, 169. 

Safflower, 103. 

Salicylic acid, 119. 

Salutations, 113. 

Samson, 50, 142. 

Sandals, 186. 

Sanguino-phlegmatic temperament, 76. 

Sartor Resartus, 178. 



Saturnia, 45. 

Saucer eyes, 89. 

Savages, teeth of, 116, 117. 

Saxons, their hair, 150. 

Scarlet, 172. 

Schools, 59, 94. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 92, 145. 

Scylla, 129. 

Sebaceous glands, 131, 135- 

Secondary colors, 19. 

Sedentary life, 58. 

Sentiment in dress, 177. 

Sex and beauty, 37-42. 

and dress, 164. 

Sexes, proportion of the, 52. 

Shadows, 176. 

Shakspeare, 5, 9, 29, 31, 69, 87, 88, 90, 101, 

122, 125, 158, 161, 185. 
Sheep's-eye, the, 89. 
Shoes, 185-187. 
Siesta, 55. 
Signs of love, 107. 
Sigourney, Mrs., 46, 48, 53. 
Silver, 147. 

Simplicity in dress, 179. 
Simon, St., 185. 
Skin, the, 130, 131. 
Skull and mind, 82, 83. 
Sleep, 55. 
Snub nose, 98. 
Soap and the hair, 144. 
Socrates, 9, n, 14, 3 8 > 54, 68 - 
Soda, 137. 
Solomon, 38, 56, 70. 
Solon, 8. 

Sores, odor of, 159. 
Sorosis, the, 164. 
Spartans, 48. 
Spectrum, 18. 
Spencer, Herbert, 20, 40. 
Spenser, 108, 114. 
Spine, disease of, 60. 

straightness of, 61. 

Stael, Madame de, 8. 
Stewart, Dugald, 95. 
Stramonium ointment, in. 
Strength and the hair, 142. 
Structure and color, 18, 19. 

and function, 44, 45. 

of the hair, 139. 

of the skin, 130, 131. 

Styes, 157, 158. 
Style and lines, 167, 168. 
Sulphur, 147, 148. 
Sunburning, 135. 
Surgeons' bones, 102. 
Swift, 181. 
Symmetry, 17, 18. 

Taste for beauty, advantage of, 6. 

and dress, 170. 

Taste-guide, 171. 
Tawdriness, 168, 178. 
Teeth, the, no, in, 114-121. 



196 



Temperance, 54. 
Temperament and intellect, 81. 

and complexion, 131. 

Temperaments, the, 76. 
Temporary teeth, 66. 
Tennyson, 165. 
Tertiary colors, 19. 
Thackeray, 125. 
Theophrastus, 11. 
Thomson, 24, 25, 59, 164. 
Thinking, 66. 
Titian, 171. 
Toothache, 120. 
Toothpicks, 118, 119. 
Training in childhood, 77. 
Turner, 95. 
Turpentine, 127. 

Ugly, advice to the, 38. 
Ugliness, causes of, 124, 125. 
its effects, 134. 

Vandalism, 24 

Vatican, 32. 

Vegetarianism, 116. 

Venus, 17, 24, 31, 46, 48, 70, 76, 90, 105, 159. 

Venus de' Medici, 24-29, 34, 73, 109, 184. 

Verais, Abbe de, 44. 

Verrucae, 156, 157. 

Vinegar, 63. 

Violet, 19, 173, 175, 180. 

lenses, 95. 

Virgil, 20, 112, 173. 
Vital temperament, 76. 
Voice and the lungs, 35. 



Waist, the, 25. 
Walking, 58, 186. 
Walnut stain, 85, 146. 
Warts, 156, 157. 
Washes, eye, 93. 

face, 133. 

hair, 144. 

mouth, 119, 158. 

Webster, 9. 

White, 174, 179, 180. 

Wigs, 184, 185. 

Will, 67. 

William the Conqueror, 149. 

Winckelmann, 33, 102, 185. 

Winship, Dr., 58, 59. 

Wisdom and health, 9. 

Woman, beauty of, 13, 23, 90. 

her costume, 163. 

her teeth, 115. 

compared with man, 33, 34. 

should be pleasing, 38. 

stature of, 25, 29. 

traits most prized in, 37-42. 

weight of, 29. 

world of, 105. 

Women, bearded, 150. 
Wrinkles, 124-128. 

Xanthippe, 68. 

Yellow, 172, 180. 
Youth and beauty, 43. 

Zeising, A., 15, 97. 
Zinc, i2<j, 121. 



Notice. — Copies of this book will be sent to any address, on 
receipt of the price ($1.50), by the author, 1523 Vine Street, 
Philadelphia, Pa. 




■ ■ 

H 












